Richard Hoath is a senior instructor II in the Department of Rhetoric and Composition and the administrator of the core seminar. After graduating from Cambridge BA with honors and then MA, he followed an eclectic career path in finance, oil and then journalism before joining AUC in 1990 in what was then the writing program. He won the Undergraduate Teaching Award in 1996 and has served extensively on University's committees including the Senate. He is currently chair of the Ahmed Zeweil Prize committee.

Hoath’s big passion is natural history and he has published extensively on the fauna of Egypt in scientific journals, in popular magazines and as a monthly environmental columnist for Egypt’s leading English language magazine Egypt Today. His latest book "A Field Guide to the Mammals of Egypt" went into its second edition in 2009. He was elected a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London in 1995. He has also written children’s books, had three plays staged in AUC’s 15 Minutes of Fame Theatre competition (indeed Niva went on to Beirut), and is a regular contributor to Herring Journal.

Hoath is currently working on a book on Egypt’s mammals incorporating the stunning lithograph’s from John Anderson’s Zoology of Egypt: Mammalia (1902) accompanied by his own narrative.

Hoath is a confirmed Africanophile and has traveled extensively throughout the continent in pursuit of its unparalleled natural and cultural heritage.