The AATSP Lifetime Achievement Award is a relatively new award that was created and bestowed on two deserving members, Domnita Dumitrescu and Judith Park, in 2019 and Emily Spinelli in 2020. The award is a tribute to leadership, service, dedication, and commitment to the AATSP throughout one's career.

The Board has chosen to confer the 2026 Lifetime Achievement award posthumously to Professor Milton Azevedo.

Excerpt from Professor Luci Moreira’s tribute to Milton:
Milton Azevedo was Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, where he started teaching in 1976 and retired in 2015. He was member ‘Numerario’ (or Permanent) of the Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española and Correspondent Member of the Real Academia Española. He published in Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, and English, wrote, translated, edited, or co-edited twenty-nine books, seventy-five articles and reviews. As a member of our association for more than forty years, he wore many hats at the AATSP. He served as an Associate Editor and was in the Editorial Board of Hispania for many years. He was member of the Board of Directors several times, organized and chaired numerous sessions, presented papers, published many articles at Hispania, and served as President of the AATSP in 2009. Despite his achievements, he remained humble without sacrificing his always-ready sense of humor, colored with his trademark sarcasm.

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