Richard Buckius is a professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University and was formerly Purdue’s vice president for research. He served as the National Science Foundation’s chief operating officer and senior science advisor and was nominated by President Barack Obama to serve as the NSF’s deputy director. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Buckius held the positions of head of the Department Of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, associate vice chancellor for research, and Richard W. Kritzer professor. Buckius also served as NSF's assistant director for engineering, director for the Division of Chemical and Transport Systems, and program director of the Thermal Systems and Engineering program.

Buckius is the author/co-author of numerous publications, books and invited talks and articles in the thermal sciences area. He co-authored the textbook Fundamentals of Engineering Thermodynamics (Mc-Graw-Hill) which was published in English, Spanish and international versions. He is a member of the editorial boards of Nanoscale and Microscale Thermophysical Engineering and Heat Transfer Research. He was vice president, basic engineering, for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and associate technical editor for the ASME Journal of Heat Transfer. He has served on advisory panels and groups for various national and international universities, foundations, and Sandia National Laboratory.

His honors include the NSF’s Distinguished Service Award, ASME’s Richards Memorial Award, ASME's Potter Gold Medal, American Society for Engineering Education Ralph Coats Roe Award, ASME Heat Transfer Division 75th Anniversary Medal, and numerous UIUC teaching awards including the Campus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.

Buckius received his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1972, 1973 and 1975, respectively.