Emeritus professor of psychology Donald I. Tepas died on Jan. 9.

Tepas earned his Ph.D. in psychology at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1963. After graduate school, he did research at Walter Reed in Washington, D.C., and then at Honeywell in Minneapolis, Minn. Next, he returned to academia, holding faculty positions at Saint Louis University and Illinois Institute of Technology. He joined the Department of Psychology at UConn in 1985, where he remained as professor of psychology and senior research associate of the Connecticut Transportation Institute until his retirement in 1998.

Tepas was internationally known for his scholarly work in the fields of shiftwork, occupational health and safety, and transportation safety. He was also founding President of the Society for Computers in Psychology, Secretary of the Shiftwork Committee of the International Commission on Occupational Health, and founding Secretary of the international Working Time Society.

At UConn, he played a critical role in the development of the Ph.D. program in industrial-organizational psychology, serving as the first division head for the newly formed industrial-organizational program from 1985 to 1997.

“Always a force to be reckoned with, he played an influential role in the lives and careers of many of our alumni, as a professor, collaborator, mentor and/or friend,” says Janet Barnes-Farrell, professor of industrial-organizational psychology and a longtime colleague of Tepas’s at UConn.

Tepas is survived by his wife Sue, and his children and grandchildren.

There will be no burial services, but a memorial is likely to take place in the future.