In Memoriam: Ernest G. Cravalho: A Pathbreaker for Interdisciplinary Research in Thermal Science—Personal Recollections

Abstract

I first met Ernie in the Fall of 1989, after I had joined the MIT mechanical engineering department as an assistant professor. We were assigned to coteach the undergraduate engineering thermodynamics course together with Prof. Joseph L. Smith, based on the book Ernie and Joe had written about 20 years before.Ernie had to go out of town at short notice, and the next day I gave my first lecture in front of 200 impatient students expecting to be taught by a seasoned professor and not by an inexperienced guy just out of graduate school! But Ernie trusted me with this, and this was typical of him: He had full confidence in his students and colleagues, and he showed many of us this trust clearly, which I found most encouraging.