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Michael Cheng
James Beard Award winner
- Discipline
- Other
i. Biography
The Path
Food education sits where scholarship, hospitality, and applied food science have to become usable in professional practice. In that lane, Michael Cheng built an academic record across Founding Director and Department Chair; director of Global Studies and MBA Programs; and professor of culinology® at Southwest Minnesota State University. The throughline is program architecture: taking culinary ideas, operational needs, and institutional requirements and making them teachable, repeatable, and legible to students preparing for the trade. Hospitality education requires the dining room, kitchen, classroom, and management office to be treated as connected parts of the same discipline. At Florida International University, Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management, Cheng served as Tenured Associate Professor and director of the food and Beverage Program. The role placed food and beverage inside the broader practice of hospitality, where culture, service, management, creativity, and daily operations shape how professionals are trained. Academic leadership in hospitality carries responsibility for curriculum, faculty, students, industry relevance, and the place of food education in a global field. Today, Michael is dean; professor of Florida International University, Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management. The work is less about a single specialty than about stewardship of the systems that prepare working professionals.
The Work Today
The senior academic role at the Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management at Florida International University in Miami, Florida brings together several established areas of practice: culinology®, food and beverage education, Global Studies, MBA Programs, departmental leadership, and professorial work. Cheng now serves as Dean and tenured Full Professor there, carrying those strands into institutional leadership. Hospitality in Miami, Florida is not an abstraction; it is practiced through dining rooms, hotels, kitchens, classrooms, and the movement of people and ideas. Within Florida International University, the Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management operates in that context. Cheng’s current work is tied to the formal responsibilities of a Dean and tenured Full Professor, with continuing attention to how food is taught, how hospitality is managed, how programs are built, and how students are prepared for a demanding service industry. Program leadership accumulates through roles that leave working methods behind. The Founding Director and Department Chair, the director of Global Studies and MBA Programs, the professor of culinology® at Southwest Minnesota State University, the Tenured Associate Professor and director of the food and Beverage Program at Florida International University, Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management—each role remains part of the foundation beneath Cheng’s current leadership.
Signature
Culinology® is listed among Michael's signature dishes, but here it functions as a disciplinary marker rather than a plated item. The term connects culinary craft with food science, placing sensory cooking alongside the structured knowledge used to define, teach, and reproduce professional food practice. For Cheng, it names a field that has run through his academic identity and shaped how the work is understood.
Acclaim
Recognition in food education often follows program building as much as individual output. Michael's honors include Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in the Culinary Arts finalist (2010) and President’s Award. Those honors sit beside academic leadership, food and beverage education, and sustained work in hospitality training.
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Michael
What is Michael Cheng's current role?
As of 2026, Michael Cheng is Dean and Tenured Full Professor.
Where did Michael Cheng work before?
Michael Cheng's earlier career included Southwest Minnesota State University and Florida International University, Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management.
What recognition has Michael Cheng received?
Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in the Culinary Arts finalist (2010).
