As an undergraduate, Richardson was a student activist and chair of the campus Anti-Apartheid Society, which opposed the South African government's racist policies[12][13] After Trinity College, Dublin, Richardson took an MA degree in political science from UCLA in 1981, followed by a move to Harvard, where she received a Master of Arts degree in government in 1984[1] and a PhD in 1989 on how allies manage crises in which interests diverge, relating specifically to the Falklands War and Suez Crisis.
[1][14] Based on her earlier involvement with the anti-apartheid movement, Richardson joined the supporters who travelled to Johannesburg in 1985 with the Dunnes Stores strikers — Irish workers who had walked off the job after refusing to handle fruit from South Africa.
The workers were denied entry, creating an international uproar,[16] while Richardson and two researchers stayed on to conduct interviews on conditions,[17] working alongside the South African Council of Churches.
[citation needed] Richardson continued to work in numerous administrative capacities at Harvard, including the Faculty Council and various committees concerned with undergraduate education, the status of women, and human rights.
When Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences presented its Centennial Award for distinguished alumni to Richardson in 2013, the official citation noted her contributions to the field: "The lessons she began to teach us — before we knew how much we needed them — grow more relevant with each new incident of terror our world faces.
She managed the budget, infrastructure, and staff, while also overseeing a dramatic, multiyear renovation of three iconic buildings: the Schlesinger Library, the Radcliffe Gym, and Byerly Hall.
[27][28] Richardson's scholarly profile at Radcliffe increased after the September 11 attacks, and her expertise helped to shield Harvard from criticism about the paucity of its terrorism course offerings.
The New York Times called it "the overdue and essential primer on terrorism and how to tackle it,"[31] while the Financial Times said it was a rare academic work, “a bestseller with no trade-off between accessibility and scholarly rigour.”[29] And the New York Review of Books commented: “One would like to see the entire US national security establishment frog-marched into Richardson's Terrorism 101.”[32] In 2009, Richardson was appointed principal of the University of St Andrews, succeeding Brian Lang.
[38] Richardson wrote, "The official endorsement of any club or society which excludes people because of their gender or race would be completely at odds with the values of this university and our commitment to foster an open and inclusive international community of scholars and students at St.
[41] She enlisted alumni, including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge — Prince William and Princess Kate, who hosted a dinner at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, raising more than $3 million toward student scholarships.
[42] Richardson also invited Scottish screen legend Sir Sean Connery to produce a film about St. Andrews and then persuaded the actor to come out of retirement to appear in production.
[44] In separate efforts, Richardson raised private and government funds to allow St Andrews to purchase a former papermill in the nearby village of Guardbridge in 2010[45] and to convert it into a $35 million-dollar green energy center.
[54] To protect her academic staff from external pressures to support the Scottish government's position in the referendum, Richardson issued a statement saying they were free to state their personal opinions, insisting that the public looked to universities for reasoned debate.
[55] These incidents helped define Richardson as a "champion of free thought" with a "ferocious independent spirit" according to a column about her tenure at St. Andrews published in The Daily Telegraph of London.
[58] In October 2017, Richardson claimed that Oxford University was in need of reform, stating that the current system gives rise to "a waste of resources" and a "duplication of bureaucracy".
[60] In an interview with the Daily Telegraph in July 2019 Richardson addressed the issue of higher education funding in the UK, noting that "Our American competitors are so far ahead of us in fundraising".
[63] Richardson helped negotiate several major partnerships for Oxford: In 2017, Novo Nordisk invested £115 million in a new research center focused on type 2 Diabetes;[64] in 2019, Legal and General agreed to invest £4 billion in staff housing and science facilities; and in 2021, manufacturing company Ineos donated £100 million to establish a center for research into the global issue of antimicrobial resistance (AMR)[65] As part of the Oxford Thinking Campaign, Richardson continued a fundraising campaign that started in 2004 and culminated in 2019 with £3.3 billion in gifts from more than 170,000 donors.
[69] Richardson opposed Brexit and the United Kingdom's break with the European Union due to concerns over missing out on billions of dollars in EU research funding and collaborations and the agreement's impact on students and staff.
[79] Starting in early 2020, Oxford took a leading international role in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting a Financial Times profile of Richardson's crisis management style.
The article highlighted the vice-chancellor's preference for informality and flexibility and her quick coordination and funding of an emergency research programme led by a group of medical and life sciences professors.
"[80] By Spring 2021, the partnership with AstraZeneca had produced more vaccines than any other developer, about a third of the world's 1.47 bn administered doses, and with the widest distribution both geographically and across global income groups.
[82] Richardson told the Sunday Times that the vaccine demonstrated the need for long-term thinking when it comes to funding and for "blue-skies research that will have an impact that we can't anticipate now.
[18] In February 2022, Times Higher Education summarized Richardson's achievements noting Oxford's COVID-19 vaccine development, charitable fundraising, student access, and an inclination to stand up to "unparalleled media scrutiny.
[110] She suggested that Nelson Mandela would not have wanted the controversial statue of Cecil Rhodes removed, explaining that the South African anti-apartheid leader was a man of "deep nuance" who would have opposed attempts to "hide history.
So the idea of having a very public debate about Ireland’s role in the world, I thought was really quite admirable.” [121] Richardson is the author of What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat, an account of terrorism written after the September 11 attacks.
Other publications include When Allies Differ: Anglo-American Relations in the Suez and Falkland Crises; The Roots of Terrorism (ed); and Democracy and Counterterrorism: Lessons from the Past (co-edited with Robert Art).
[122][123][124] Between 2001 and 2008, in addition to her teaching and management roles, Richardson gave over 300 talks and lectures on terrorism and counter-terrorism to educational and private groups as well as policy makers, the military, intelligence, and business communities.
She has testified before the United States Senate[130] and has appeared on CNN,[131] the BBC Desert Island Discs,[132] PBS NewsHour,[133] NPR,[134] Fox[135] and a host of other broadcast outlets.
[139] In 2016, she received the inaugural Emily Winifred Dickson award from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, which recognises women who have made an outstanding contribution to their field.
[146] Business & Finance honored Richardson in Ireland with the Sutherland Leadership Award in 2023 in recognition of her contributions to higher education and for her instrumental role in developing the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.