Richard Schuler was a professor of economics in the College of Arts and Sciences and professor of civil and environmental engineering at Cornell University. A member of the Cornell faculty since 1972, Schuler’s research emphasized the micro-planning, management and pricing of infrastructure and utilities, as well as the societal issues of their institutional structure, regional economic impact and environmental consequences. He wrote extensively on the changing institutional and regulatory needs for the electric industry, including its deregulation.

He also explored basic questions of organizational structure in the information age, using numerical simulation techniques, with colleagues at Cornell and the Santa Fe Institute.chuler served on the executive committee of the National Science Foundation-supported, multi-university Institute for Civil Infrastructure Systems. For 12 years he also taught a course, The Political, Legal, Regulatory Environment of Business, for MBA students in the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management. From 1995 to 2001, he directed and expanded the Institute for Public Affairs, Cornell’s interdisciplinary, universitywide professional MPA program.

Schuler also served as director of the Cornell Waste Management Institute and the NYS Solid Waste Combustion Institute from 1987-93, and was associate director of the Center for the Environment from 1989-93. He served on Cornell’s board of trustees from 1993-97 and was a member of the faculty Senate for nearly 20 years.