[1][2] Richards, along with Wearn, is credited with the method of renal micropuncture to study the functioning of kidneys in 1924.

In 1941, then U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed Richards chairman of the Committee on Medical Research.

In 1948, President Harry Truman appointed Richards to the Medical Affairs Task Force of the Commission on the Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government; Richards also became a director of Merck & Co., for which he had consulted since 1931, and an associate trustee of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 1948.

[5] Richards' technique for the study of kidney functioning is considered a landmark in animal physiology research.

[6] The Richards Medical Research Laboratories building at the University of Pennsylvania, one of the best-known and most influential designs of architect Louis Kahn, is named for him.