Dr. Richard Schoephoerster is currently the Dean of the Washkewicz College of Engineering at Cleveland State University. The College is comprised of five departments housing 24 bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees with approximately 100 faculty and staff serving about 2200 students. Prior to this role he served as Dean of the Graduate College and Research at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville, Arkansas. He also recently finished a contract with the American Society of Engineering Education to design, development, and deliver professional development workshops (the DELTA series) for their 10,000+ members.
He was appointed Dean of the College of Engineering at the American University of Sharjah (AUS) in the United Arab Emirates in 2016 and served in that capacity until 2019. He joined AUS from the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), where he served as Dean of the College of Engineering from 2007 to 2015. Prior to that he served in various capacities at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami, Florida.
He joined FIU in 1990, rising in the ranks from Research Associate to Assistant Professor (1992), Associate Professor (1996), and Full Professor (2001) over his seventeen years at the institution. The FIU Department of Biomedical Engineering was established in 2003 with Dr. Schoephoerster as the Founding Chair. In 2005 he was named the Wallace H. Coulter Eminent Scholars Chair in Biomedical Engineering at FIU. In 2011 Dr. Schoephoerster was the inaugural recipient of the Riter Endowed Professorship in Engineering at UTEP.
Dr. Schoephoerster led the efforts to establish the BS, MS, and PhD programs in biomedical engineering at FIU. While at UTEP new programs were established in systems engineering (MS), construction management (MS), biomedical engineering (MS and PhD), software engineering (MS), engineering leadership (BS), construction engineering and management (BS), and mechanical engineering (PhD). At AUS an MS in biomedical engineering and the first doctoral program was established, and he led efforts to transform the undergraduate curriculum for active, project-based, and practiced based learning, and the effort to transform AUS to a leading research university in the MENA region.
During his tenure as a faculty member, Dr. Schoephoerster ran an active research program in the area of biofluid mechanics and cardiovascular devices with a major focus on cardiac applications. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, and the American Heart Association. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Global Engineering Deans Council, the Texas Emerging Technology Fund Advisory Committee, the Executive Leadership in Academic Technology and Engineering (ELATE) Program Advisory Board, and the Florida Biomedical Research Advisory Council.
Dr. Schoephoerster has a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering, and M.S. and PhD degrees in Mechanical Engineering, all from the University of Iowa.