Dr. Crawley is the Executive Director of the Cambridge – MIT Institute, and is a Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and of Engineering Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received an SB (1976) and an SM (1978) in Aeronautics and Astronautics, and an ScD (1981) in Aerospace Structures from MIT. He is formerly the Department Head of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, and a MacVicar Faculty Fellow. Dr. Crawley's current research interests include: the architecture of engineered systems, the design of spacecraft and space systems, and the development of intelligent structures. He is the author of over numerous journal publications in the AIAA Journal, the ASME Journal, the Journal of Composite Materials, and Acta Astronautica.

Dr. Crawley is a Fellow of the AIAA, the Royal Aeronautical Society (UK), the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Science, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He was chairman of the NASA Technology and Commercialization Advisory Committee, was a member of the NASA Advisory Committee, and holds the NASA Public Service Medal. He has served as the Chairman of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), International Gas Turbine Institute (IGTI), Structures and Dynamics Technical Committee. In 1993 was a member of the Presidential Advisory Committee on the Space Station Redesign. He is conversant in Russian, and has spent time as a visitor at the Moscow Aviation Institute, the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and Stanford University. He was a finalist in the NASA Astronaut selection in 1980, is an active pilot, and was the 1990, 1995 and 2005 Northeast Regional Soaring champion. In 2004 he received the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award of the Boy Scouts of America.

A founder of ACX, a Cambridge based product development and manufacturing firm, he served as its Chairman and Chief Technology Officer of from 1992 to 2000, at which time it was acquired by Cymer, Incorporated (CYMI). He is a founder and Chairman of BioScale, a company developing biomolecular detectors, and has served on the boards and advisory boards of numerous other entrepreneurial ventures. In 2003 he was elected to the Board of Directors of Orbital Sciences Corporation (ORB).