Richard K. Miller was appointed President and first employee of Olin College of Engineering in 1999. He served as Dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Iowa from 1992-99.

The previous 17 years were spent on the Engineering faculty at USC in Los Angeles and UCSB in Santa Barbara. With a background in applied mechanics and current interests in innovation in higher education, Miller is the author of more than 100 reviewed journal articles and other technical publications. Together with two Olin colleagues, he received the 2013 Bernard M. Gordon Prize from the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE) for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education.

A member of both the NAE and the National Academy of Inventors, he received the Marlowe Award for creative and distinguished administrative leadership from the American Society for Engineering Education in 2011. Miller served as Chair of the Engineering Advisory Committee of the U.S. National Science Foundation and has served on advisory boards and committees for Harvard University, Stanford University, the NAE and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in addition to others. Furthermore, he has served as a consultant to the World Bank in the establishment of new universities.

A frequent speaker on engineering education, he received the 2002 Distinguished Engineering Alumnus Award from the University of California at Davis, where he earned his B.S. He earned his M.S. from MIT and Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology, where he received the 2014 Caltech Distinguished Alumni Award.