Robert C. Richardson was born in Washington, D.C., and attended Virginia Polytechnic Institute for his bachelor’s (1958) and master’s degrees(1960).  He continued his education at Duke University, where he was awarded the Ph.D. degree in physics in 1966.  He joined the Physics Department at Cornell University, as a research associate in 1966, a professor in 1968, promoted to full professor in 1975, and in 1987 was named the Floyd R. Newman Professor of Physics.  He was the director of Cornell’s Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics between 1990 and 1996.  He served as senior vice provost for research from 1998 to 2007, as the senior science advisor to the President and Provost from 2007 to 2009, and the Founding Director of the Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science from 2004 to 2009.  In 2008 he was named Senior Vice Provost for Research, Emeritus. 

Richardson’s collaborative research with David M. Lee and Douglas D. Osheroff led in 1971 to the discovery that helium-3, a rare isotope of helium, can be made a superfluid, that is, flow without resistance at temperatures close to absolute zero.  This discovery disproved the widely held belief that helium-3 could not reach a superfluid state, and has transformed research in low-temperature physics.  The importance of this discovery was recognized in 1976 with the awarding of the Sir Francis Simon Memorial Prize in Low-Temperature Physics by Britain’s Institute of Physics, and in 1981 with the Oliver E. Buckley Solid State Physics Prize from the American Physical Society.  In 1996 Richardson, Lee, and Osheroff shared the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Richardson is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1981), fellow of the American Physical Society (1983), member of the National Academy of Sciences (1986), foreign member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters (1993), fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1995), and member of the American Philosophical Society (2001).

Richardson’s service on governing boards helped research and higher education policy.  He was a member of the National Science Board (1998-2004), the governing board of the National Science Foundation, and served on the NSB Executive Committee (2000-2004).  He also served on the boards of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2000-2004), Brookhaven Science Associates (1998-2007), and Associated Universities Incorporated (2005-present).  He has also served as a member of the Board of Trustees, Duke University (1997-2007) and its Executive Committee (2001-2007).

Richardson served as a member of the National Research Council Committee on Prospering in the Global Economy of the 21st Century (2005-2007) which produced  the vital report “Rising Above the Gathering Storm.”  He is currently Co-Chairing the National Research Council Committee on Understanding the Impact of Selling the U.S. Helium Reserve, Co-Chair (2007-2009).

Of his many accomplishments, Richardson often highlights his 30 years of teaching college physics, which culminated in co-authoring College Physics with Alan Giambattista and Betty Richardson (McGraw-Hill, 2003).