The American Academy of Sleep Medicine regrets to announce that Peter J. Hauri, PhD, died Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013, at St. Mary’s Hospital in Rochester, Minn. Hauri was a native of Switzerland, and was a junior high school science teacher there before coming to the U.S. in 1959. In 1960, Hauri received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. From 1960 to 1965, he studied psychology at the University of Chicago and completed a thesis on the “Effects of Evening Activity on Early Night Sleep and Dreaming” under the supervision of Dr. Allan Rechtschaffen, to whom he also was an assistant. This was followed by a one-year psychology internship at the Illinois State Psychiatric Institute under the supervision of Dr. Rosalind Cartwright. He received a PhD in clinical psychology in 1966.

Until 1988, Dr. Hauri was primarily a college professor of psychology, never employed more than half-time in sleep research. Dr. Hauri worked from 1966 to 1968 as a psychologist at the DeWitt State Hospital in Auburn, Calif. From 1968-1973 he was assistant professor in the sleep laboratory of Dr. R. Hawkins at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va. He then moved to Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., where he established a sleep disorders center. In 1988 he became Administrative Director of the Mayo Sleep Disorders Center in Rochester, from which he retired in 2000.

 

Hauri was author of numerous book chapters and papers in peer-reviewed journals, mainly focused on the science of sleep and the diagnosis and behavioral treatment of insomnia. In 1977 he wrote a booklet entitled The Sleep Disorders (Scope Publications), which was widely distributed to physicians, medical students and graduate students. In 1990, with science writer Shirley Linde, he wrote No More Sleepless Nights, a self-help book for people with insomnia.

Hauri played a pivotal role in the formation of the AASM and made significant contributions to the advancement of sleep medicine. At the Edinburgh sleep conference in 1975, he organized a meeting of leaders in the sleep field. This group established an organization that would become the Association of Sleep Disorders Centers (ASDC), which is now the AASM, and Hauri served on its Board of Directors. Along with several other colleagues, Hauri helped give direction to the first examination in clinical polysomnography. Offered in 1978, the exam was the precursor of today’s board certification examination in sleep medicine. He also was appointed to the Nosology Committee that created the first diagnostic system for sleep and arousal disorders, which was published in SLEEP in 1979. Hauri went on to serve as the ICSD-2 Task Force Chair, overseeing the publication of The International Classification of Sleep Disorders: Diagnostic and Coding Manual (ICSD), Second Edition, which was published by the AASM in 2005.

From 1982 – 1984, Hauri also served as executive secretary of the Association for the Psychophysiological Study of Sleep, which is now the Sleep Research Society (SRS). As part of its “Conversations with our Founders” series, the SRS previously recorded a 30-minute video interview with Hauri, which is available for viewing on the SRS website.

Hauri has three children from a previous marriage: Heidi, David and Katrin. He has one son, Matthew, from his second marriage to Dr. Cynthia Cleveland, a psychiatrist in Rochester.

Funeral arrangements are pending; please contact Ranfranz & Vine Funeral Homes for information.