Eduardo Salas

Eduardo’s primary appointment is in the department of psychological sciences as Allyn R. & Gladys M. Cline Chair and Professor of Psychology.

Dr. Salas was born in Lima, Peru and began his career 40 years ago after graduating from Old Dominion University with a Ph.D. degree in industrial and organizational psychology.

Dr. Salas was a senior research psychologist and head of the training technology development branch of NAVAIR-Orlando for 15 years. During this period, Dr. Salas served as a principal investigator for numerous R&D programs focusing on teamwork, team training, advanced training technology, decision-making under stress, learning methodologies and performance assessment. He continued as a Trustee Chair and Pegasus Professor of Psychology at the University of Central Florida and program director for the department of human systems integration research at the Institute for Simulation & Training. For the last eight years, he has been the Allyn R. & Gladys M. Cline Chair Professor in Psychology and chair of the department of psychological sciences at Rice University.

Dr. Salas has co-authored over 650 journal articles and book chapters and has co-edited 36 books. He has also authored two books on team training and the science of teamwork. His work has been cited over 133,000 times with an h-index of 183. He is/has been on the editorial boards of Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Journal of Management, Military Psychology, Applied Psychology: An International Journal, Group Dynamics, Journal of Organizational Behavior and many others. He is past editor-in-chief of Human Factors Journal, associate editor of Journal of Applied Psychology, American Psychologist and Military Psychology. Most recently, he edited the special issue for the 100th year anniversary of the Journal of Applied Psychology and an issue on the science of teamwork for American Psychologist.

He is a past president of the Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology (SIOP) and the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES). He's a past fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA), the HFES and the Association for Psychological Science, and also a recipient of the Meritorious Civil Service Award from the Department of the Navy. 

He's received many awards during his career, including:

• The Jack A. Kraft Innovator Award (2007 - HFES)
• The A.R. Lauer Safety Award (2009 - HFES)
• The Losey Lifetime Achievement Award (2012 - Society for Human Resource Management)
• The Joseph E. McGrath Award for Lifetime Achievement (2012 - INGroup)
• Lifetime Achievement Award for Contributions to Psychology (2016 - APA)
• The Distinguished Professional Contributions & Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award (2016 - SIOP)
• The M. Scott Myers Award for Applied Research in the Workplace (four-time winner: 2001, 2007, 2009, 2013 - SIOP)
• The Wayne Casio Scientist-Practitioner Award (2023 - SIOP)
• The James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award for outstanding lifetime contributions to the area of applied psychological research (2023 -  APS)
• The Gold Medal Award for Impact in Psychology (2023 - American Psychological Foundation)

He is a pioneer in the fields of teamwork, team effectiveness, team training and learning, and individual training. He helps organizations on how to foster teamwork, design and implement team training strategies, facilitate training effectiveness, manage decision-making under stress, develop performance measurement tools, and design learning environments. He is currently working on designing tools and techniques to minimize human errors in oil and gas, aviation, law enforcement and medical environments. He has consulted to a variety of manufacturing, pharmaceutical laboratories, industrial, and governmental organizations.