It was discovered on 19 February 1995, by American astronomer Dennis di Cicco at his private Sudbury Observatory (817), Massachusetts, United States.

[2] Rickfienberg is a non-family asteroid of the main belt's background population when applying the hierarchical clustering method to its proper orbital elements.

The dark C-type asteroid orbits the Sun in the central main-belt at a distance of 2.4–3.0 AU once every 4 years and 5 months (1,627 days).

[8] This minor planet was named for Richard Tresch Fienberg (born 1956) an American astronomer at Rice and Harvard universities, and a stargazer at his private observatory near Danbury, New Hampshire.

It gave a well-defined rotation period of 5.2963 hours with a high brightness variation of 1.3 in magnitude (U=3), typically indicating a non-spheroidal shape.