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This major HKN recognition for career accomplishment in the field of electrical and computer engineering dates from 1922, when the Board of Governors established the award in honor of Vladimir Karapetoff, an IEEE Fellow and a prominent member of Eta Kappa Nu.

The award is given annually to an electrical practitioner who is distinguished himself/herself through an invention, a development, or a discovery in the field of electrotechnology. The fund to support the award was initiated through a bequest from Dr. Karapetoff's widow, R.M. Karapetoff Cobb, herself a distinguished chemical engineer.

Factors that are considered in bestowing the award include the impact and scope of applicability of the invention, development, or discovery; its impact on the public welfare and standard of living, and/or global stability; and the effective lifetime of its impact.

Dr. Karapetoff was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on January 8, 1876. His father was an engineer, and his mother was a student at a military medical school. Dr. Karapetoff immigrated to the United States in 1902 and became a naturalized citizen in 1909.

In 1904, Dr. Karapetoff joined the engineering faculty of Cornell University as an assistant professor; in 1909, he was made a full professor and continued in that capacity until he retired from active teaching in 1939.

During World War II, Dr. Karapetoff was commissioned a Lt. Commander in the U.S. Navy.

He seldom missed the annual Eta Kappa Nu Awards Dinner in New York City and would address the society in what a fellow engineer described as "refreshingly original and lucid expositions" of his technical interests.

Dr. Karapetoff was the author of several electrical engineering texts that were widely used and revised through several editions, as well as other texts on electrical and magnetic currents, electrical testing, and engineering mathematics.

His colleagues also remembered him as an accomplished musician on piano, violoncello, and double bass. He toured the country giving recitals and lectures on Wagner, Liszt, and other major composers and developed a five-string cello on which violin music could be played. Dr. Karapetoff received an honorary Doctor of Music degree from the New York College of Music.

Dr. Karapetoff was a member of the AIEE, the Franklin Institute, the AAAS, the American Mathematical Society, the Mathematical Society, the Mathematical Society of America.