Richard C. Benson is the recently retired president of The University of Texas at Dallas. Educated in mechanical engineering at Princeton (BSE 1973), Virginia (MS 1974) and California-Berkeley (PHD 1977), Benson also spent a sabbatical year at the University of California, San Diego (1986-87). Following his PHD, Benson went to work for the Xerox Corporation (1977-1980) on projects in research and development. Since 1980, Benson has worked as an engineering educator and academic administrator. He has had positions of increasing scope and responsibility at the University of Rochester (1980-1995), Penn State (1995-2005), Virginia Tech (2005-2016), and lastly UT Dallas (2016-2025).