Cryomech Bios:

Peter Gifford
Peter Gifford graduated from Syracuse University in 1971. He joined Cryomech, Inc. to work with his father William E. Gifford in 1973, apprenticing in cryogenics. He became president of the company in 1978. Mr. Gifford has designed the compressor packages and cold heads incorporated in the Gifford-McMahon cycle cryorefrigerators presently manufactured by Cryomech, Inc. He has designed custom cryostats and cryorefrigerators for customers throughout the industry and research community. He has three patents. In 1993 he was elected to the Cryogenic Engineering Conference Board.

Dr. Chao Wang
Dr. Wang received his B.S. degree from Shanghai Institute of Mechanical Engineering in 1985, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Xian'An Jiaotong University in 1990 and 1993. Between 1993 and 1996, he was a post-doctoral researcher and later became an associate professor at Cryogenic Lab, CAS. He then received an A.v. Humboldt research fellowship for study at the University of Giessen. Since 1998, he has been employed as Director of R&D at Cryomech, Inc. His main research focus is development of pulse tube cryocoolers, CM cryocoolers and cryocooler-related cryogenic systems.

He developed and commercialized the world's first two-stage pulse tube cryocoolers below 4K. He liquefied helium and conductively cooled a superconducting magnet with the pulse tube cryocoolers for the first time. His 4K pulse tube cryocoolers have created many applications for low temperature superconductors, etc. He commercialized the world's first 10K pulse tube cryocooler for cryopump, etc. Also developed are single stage GM cryocoolers for high temerature supercoductors, which have the highest efficiency and cooling capacity to date.

He has published more than 80 scientific papers and awarded 5 patents. He was elected as a board member of International Cryocooler Conference.

Due to his contributions to cryogenic refrigeration, he received awards of Fourth Prize of 1998 National Natural Science Award from China, Cryogenic Prized from Elsevier Science Ltd for the best paper published in Cryogenics (1998), and Roger W. Boom Award of 2000 from Cryogenic Society of America.

Rich Dausman
Rich Dausman, our Vice President, Engineering, received his degree in Mechanical Engineering from Syracuse University. He has currently been with Cryomech for 32 years. His work on special projects here at Cryomech include the development of our Liquid Nitrogen Plants and Cold Helium Circulation System.

Brent Zerkle
Brent Zerkle, our Director of Prototyping, received his degree as Model Maker from Onondaga Community College. He has currently been with Cryomech for 25 years. His work on special projects here at Cryomech include the Helium recovery system, Helium reliquifier, Remote Reliquifier and Special Cryostats.