Dr. Ray Radebaugh Biography

Dr. Radebaugh was the Group Leader of the Cryogenic Technologies Group for the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, from 1995 until his retirement from NIST in March, 2009.  He continues to work for NIST part time under contract and consults in the field of cryocoolers under the business name of Radebaugh Cryogenics.  From 1966 to 1968 he was a NRC-NIST Postdoctoral Associate, and was a staff physicist with NIST after 1968 until his retirement. He has conducted and supervised research on measurements and models for cryogenic properties and processes, such as refrigeration and heat transfer, at temperatures ranging from about 10 mK to room temperature.  Dr. Radebaugh was appointed a NIST Fellow in June, 2008.

Dr. Radebaugh has published over 200 papers as part of the open literature. He has received several awards, including the Department of Commerce Gold Medal in 2003, the Silver Medal in 1995, three best paper awards at the Cryogenic Engineering Conferences, the R&D 100 Award in 1990 for the thermoacoustically driven pulse tube refrigerator, the J&E Hall Gold Medal in 1999 from the Institute of Refrigeration in England for his pioneering work on pulse tube refrigerators, and the 2009 Samuel C. Collins Award from the Cryogenic Engineering Conference for his contributions to cryogenics.

He has been an invited speaker at numerous conferences, including the plenary speaker at the 1996 International Cryogenic Engineering Conference, the 1998 Applied Superconductivity Conference, the 2003 and 2008 International Conference on Cryogenics and Refrigeration, the 25th Low Temperature Physics Conference (2008), and the 2015 Cryogenic Engineering Conference/International Cryogenic Materials Conference.  He has taught more than 30 short courses on cryocoolers and three short courses on cryogenics since 1981.