Florida International University
Food and Beverage Program leadership; Interim Dean; Dean and Professor.
ABOUT MICHAEL CHENG
A career built around
hospitality.
Michael S. H. Cheng, Ph.D., CHE — hospitality leader, educator, and researcher with a foundation in foodservice management.
Operational roots.
Academic depth.
Michael Cheng is Dean and Professor at Florida International University’s Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management. His career spans foodservice management, culinary education, applied research, and institutional leadership.
Before moving into academic leadership, he worked in university dining and managed foodservice operations with The Swanson Corporation. He later served as Program Director at Metropolitan Community College’s Institute for the Culinary Arts and as founding director and department chair of Culinology® and Hospitality Management at Southwest Minnesota State University.
At FIU, he joined as Associate Professor and Faculty Director of the Food and Beverage Program in 2015, became Interim Dean in 2017, and was appointed Dean in 2020. He became Professor in 2024.
His work brings together culinary arts and food science, competency-based education, industry partnerships, and international collaboration. He is a former editor-in-chief of the Journal of Culinary Science and Technology and coauthor of the ninth edition of Hospitality Today: An Introduction.
View credentialsCAREER FOUNDATIONS
Experience across the system.
Southwest Minnesota State University
Founding Culinology® leadership; department chair; leadership of Global Studies and the MBA program.
Metropolitan Community College
Institute for the Culinary Arts Program Director and Assistant Dean.
Foodservice operations
University of Nebraska–Lincoln and The Swanson Corporation.
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