[1] Rishbeth studied at the University of Cambridge, receiving a BA (1954) MA(1958), PhD (1960) and ScD (1972).
[4] He briefly worked at the National Bureau of Standards as a consultant from 1962 to 1965 before returning to his previous institution in the United Kingdom.
[3] Back in Slough, he was awarded Individual Merit Scientist in 1972 and was the deputy director from 1977 to 1979.
[5] Rishbeth was the first to suggest that global warming would produce a decrease in ionospheric temperature, leading to detectable effects that could provide evidence of the presence of climate change.
[4] Rishbeth established the Magnetosphere Ionosphere and Solar-Terrestrial group, a physical sciences community based in the United Kingdom associated with the Royal Astronomical Society, along with Peter Kendall.
[7] Rishbeth received the URSI Appleton prize in 1981, was the 1995 Marcel Nicolet Lecturer at the American Geophysical Union,[3] and won the 2001 Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society.