The Society for Cryobiology is pleased to announce the Ernest G. Cravalho Award, awarded annually for the best paper which integrates Engineering and Cryobiology. 

Eligibility

• Applicants must be first or corresponding author of the paper submitted for consideration.
• Applicants must be doctoral students, postdoctoral fellows, or individuals with up to 5 years of postdoctoral experience, working in either academia or industry.
• Papers published in the previous calendar year will be considered for the award (ie papers published in 2024 for consideration of the 2025 award). 

Applications Close May 31st, 2025. 

Prof. Ernest G. Cravalho

Professor Emeritus Ernest “Ernie” Cravalho, a distinguished member of MIT’s mechanical engineering faculty and a driving force in thermodynamics education, passed away on April 13 at age 82.

Born in 1939, he earned his bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD in mechanical engineering from UC Berkeley, Cravalho joined MIT in 1967. Over the next 44 years, he played a transformative role in reshaping thermodynamics instruction, co-developing the undergraduate thermal-fluids course sequence 2.005 and 2.006 to better integrate theory with hands-on understanding.

Cravalho’s research spanned thermodynamics, heat transfer, energy conversion, and the cryopreservation of biomaterials, in which he was considered a pioneer. He authored more than 200 scientific papers and five books, including Engineering Thermodynamics. His contributions earned him election to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and other leading institutions.

He held numerous leadership positions, including associate dean of engineering, chief of biomedical engineering at Massachusetts General Hospital, and co-director of MIT’s biomedical engineering program until 1995.

Cravalho received multiple honors for teaching excellence and established the Ernest Cravalho Award for student achievement in thermal-fluids at MIT. 

The Society for Cryobiology is proud to further recognize his legacy with the establishment of the Cravalho Award for integration of Cryobiology and Engineering.