Shephard, William Danks Obituary

Shephard, William Danks attended Horace Mann High School in Gary, IN. View the obituary, post a memory, or share a photo about Shephard, William Danks.

Graduation Year	Class of 1950
Date of Passing	Jul 28, 2017
About	William Danks Shephard, PhD, 84, of Granger, was born on July 8, 1933 in Gary, IN, to William Harold and Lydia Ann (Danks) Shephard. He died at home on Friday, July 28. On July 25, 1954, he was married in Buffalo, NY to Barbara Ann Parker. She died in 1996. On May 24, 2003 in First Presbyterian Church of South Bend he married Nancy Stauffer Kavadas, who survives. Also surviving are a stepdaughter, Jennifer Ann Kavadas of North Richland Hills, TX, and a stepson, James Carlyle (Robin) Kavadas of Granger; seven grandchildren: Reagan Carlisle Naughton, Delaney MacRae Naughton and Abigail Roseanna Naughton of North Richland Hills; Abigail Catherine Trott, Nikolos Siade Kavadas, Carlyle James Kavadas and Tess Elizabeth Kavadas, of Granger; a nephew, Michael G. (Janet) Parr and grandniece, Danielle Hope Parr of Hanover Park, IL. He was preceded in death by his parents and a sister, Nancy Parr. He graduated in 1950 from Horace Mann High School, Gary. He received his bachelor's degree from Wesleyan University, CT, and his MS and PhD in physics from the University of Wisconsin. He then went to the University of Kentucky as an Assistant Professor. Dr. Shephard joined the faculty at the University of Notre Dame in 1963 where he, along with Professor V. Paul Kenney, founded the Notre Dame High Energy Elementary Particle Physics group. Dr. Shephard and the group carried out experiments at Argonne National Lab, Brookhaven National Lab, Fermilab and CERN (in Geneva, Switzerland) over the years resulting in more than 200 refereed publications and some 90 published papers in conference proceedings. Professor Shephard was a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar at the Max-Planck Institut for Physik (Munich) in 1962-63, and a Guest Professor at the University of Nijmegen (The Netherlands) in 1975-76. He was a co-organizer of several International Symposia on Multiparticle Dynamics and was asked to speak at many international conferences. He was a member of First Presbyterian Church of South Bend where he served as an Elder, Deacon and chairman of the Finance Committee.