Faculty + Staff

Dr. Richard Heist currently holds the honorific title of Senior Vice President, Emeritus, Academic Affairs and Research of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, FL.

In December 2022 he accepted the position of Interim Provost at Lawrence Technological University where he is currently employed.

In August 2020, he completed a two-year position as Interim Dean of the School of Engineering at Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT and retired, again, to 139 Vista Hermosa Circle, Sarasota, FL.

In July 2007, Dr. Heist was named Embry-Riddle’s Provost and Senior Vice President and appointed a Professor of Engineering. On Jan. 1, 2009, he was named Executive Vice President and Chief Academic Officer of the Daytona Beach Campus. In January 2012, he assumed the duties of Chancellor for the Daytona Beach Campus. In January 2015, Heist was appointed as the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Research for the University. He retired from Embry-Riddle in August 2016.

At Embry-Riddle, Dr. Heist had oversight responsibility for all academic and research matters for the University. His responsibilities included all academic programs at the Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Ph.D. levels including the oversight of academic policy and procedures; the evaluation and development of curricula; ensuring accreditation compliance, the growth of scholarly research; and the oversight of the University Research Centers. He worked with the President, the University Cabinet, other University officers, and faculty to provide strategic academic direction for the University.

Prior to Embry-Riddle, Dr. Heist served for seven years as the Dean of the School of Engineering at Manhattan College in Riverdale, NY, where he also was Professor of Engineering and Director of the Nucleation Laboratory.

Before joining Manhattan College, he spent 26 years at the University of Rochester in Rochester, N.Y., where he was the Associate Dean for Graduate Studies for the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, as well as a Professor of Chemical Engineering and Director of the Center for Nucleation Research.

Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Rochester, he spent three years as a Post-doctoral Research Fellow in the Chemistry Department at the University of California, Los Angeles working with Professor Howard Reiss.

Dr. Heist has a solid record of research and scholarship in nucleation, nucleation-related phenomena, cavitation, aerosols and other ultrafine particles, rare earth ion solid state chemistry, and educational applications of microcomputers. In addition, he has received numerous awards for excellence in undergraduate teaching.

He holds a Ph.D. from Purdue University, where his research advisor was Professor Francis K. Fong and his thesis research was in the fields of Physical Chemistry and Chemical Physics, and a B.A. from Catawba College, where he majored in Chemistry and minored in Physics.