Dr. David K. Jones, an associate professor at Boston University’s School of Public Health, died Saturday afternoon after falling about 20 feet through a rusted-out staircase near the JFK/UMass T stop, the Boston Globe reports.

In a statement posted to BU’s website, Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of the School of Public Health, expressed the difficulty in conveying “the devastation of this news.” “David was a wonderful human being, living with integrity and a deep commitment to all we do. I have so loved all my interactions with David, I cannot really imagine what it means to not have David as part of our community,” he wrote. Jones, 40, received many honors, including the BU School of Public Health Excellence in Teaching Award.

State Police spokesman David Procopio said Jones was found “lying on the ground under a stairway,” already dead. Procopio added that the stairs Jones used had been “deemed unsafe and closed for approximately 20 months.” However, Procopio acknowledged that he does not know if signs warning pedestrians were present at the time of the accident. An MBTA spokesman said that the staircase in question is not considered T property, so state police will be heading up the investigation.