Richard J. Marceau grew up in North Bay, Ontario, and is a graduate of both Ecole Secondaire Algonquin (Grade 12, 1971) and Chippewa Secondary School (Grade 13, 1972).

Dr Marceau obtained his B. Eng. at McGill University in December 1977 and began his engineering career with Montreal Engineering Co. Ltd, better known as MONENCO Inc., in January 1978. From 1978 to 1982, he worked as system planner on various power system projects around the world (i.e. Iran, Australia, etc.) and as power station designer on a number of hydro and thermal power station projects, including La Grande 3 and Laforge 2 (James Bay project), Jebba (Nigeria), and Holyrood (Newfoundland).

In 1982, he joined Hydro-Quebec as an operations engineer in Montreal. Having followed a part-time Master's program at Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal since 1979, he obtained his M.Sc.A. in 1983. He was then a researcher in electroheat technologies at the Hydro-Quebec Research Institute, specializing in electromagnetic induction heating. In 1987, he became special advisor to the Director of Technology Planning for electricity generation technologies and later, transmission technologies.

During the 1980s, he was an active IEEE volunteer member, initially within the Montreal Section and later at the Regional and trans-national levels. Most notably, he participated in the promotion and organization of numerous conferences at the section and regional levels, served as Secretary of IEEE Canada, was founding editor of the IEEE Canadian Review and was a member of the IEEE video-conference steering committee. In 1987, he received the Larry K. Wilson award for Innovative planning and direction of the IEEE participation in the Canadian Engineering Centennical Convention: this prize is generally awarded annually to only one IEEE member throughout the world.

In September 1990, he entered a Ph.D. program in electric energy transmission at McGill University under the supervision of Dr Francisco Galiana, successfully obtaining his Ph.D. degree in October 1993. Since 1992, all the security limits of the Hydro-Quebec system are determined by a software initially developed in the course his Ph. D. program. For many years, this was the only software in the world having this capability.

In July 1993, he began his career as Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, a 128 year-old engineering school which acts as the engineering faculty of the University of Montreal and which was founded independently some 50 years before the University itself. He obtained tenure in December 1996, was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor in May 1997 and elected Chairman of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in June 1998. He was promoted to the rank of Professor in May 1999 and remained Chairman until May 31st 2001.

Dr Marceau was elected Dean of the Faculty of Engineering of the Université de Sherbrooke on April 24th, 2001 by an electoral college of some 150 Faculty representatives including professors, student representatives and other personnel. The Université de Sherbrooke is a French-speaking insitution located in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada, in the heart of Quebec's Eastern Townships. It is one of Canada's 15 Medical-Doctoral universities, and is particularly well known for its coop program, the 2nd largest in Canada after the University of Waterloo. Its student body of 21,000, including 6,000 "off-campus" students involved in distance education, is distributed within 9 faculties. The Faculty of Engineering offers both bachelor and graduate programs in Chemical, Civil, Electrical and Mechanical Engineering and an undergraduate program in Computer Engineering. The Faculty of Engineering comprises some 90 professors, 100 technical and administrative support personnel, and a full-time student body of some 1500 Bachelor students, 100 Master students and 50 Ph.D. students.