Rate My Professor Robin Cleveland

Robin Cleveland is Professor of Engineering Science and Tutorial Fellow at Magdalen College, University of Oxford. He became Director of the Institute of Biomedical Engineering in 2025. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, where his doctoral research focused on sonic boom propagation in the atmosphere. Following his PhD, he was awarded the F.V. Hunt Fellowship of the Acoustical Society of America, which he held at the University of Washington studying shock wave lithotripsy. He subsequently joined the faculty at Boston University, where he served for fourteen years and rose to the rank of Professor of Mechanical Engineering before joining the University of Oxford in 2011.

Professor Cleveland conducts research in nonlinear acoustics with particular application to biomedical ultrasound. His recent research areas include low-intensity ultrasound for transcranial neuro-stimulation, disrupting bacterial biofilms with shock waves, high-intensity ultrasound for thermal ablation, ultrasonic drug delivery, and laser and shock wave lithotripsy for kidney stones. He has received awards including the ASA Bruce Lindsey Award in 2000, the Paper of the Year award from IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control in 2006, and the Teacher of the Year award in Mechanical Engineering at Boston University in 2009. He has served as Chair of the 22nd International Symposium of Nonlinear Acoustics in Oxford in 2022 and in various invited speaker and scientific chair roles at international conferences.