Mercedes Tharam Richards (Kingston, 14 May 1955 – Hershey, 3 February 2016),[1] née Davis, was a Jamaican astronomy and astrophysics professor.

Richards spoke French fluently and had a working knowledge of Spanish, Slovak, Czech, and German.

[1] She was involved in one of the most important decisions of recent years while she was a member of the IAU in Prague where, in 2006, it was decided that Pluto would not be a planet anymore.

[7] In 2011, Richards organized the IAU symposium in Slovakia, the first joint international meeting between binary star specialists.

[9] She also participated in programs of math and science enrichment for high-school students in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Vermont, Virginia and Toronto.

In 2006, she and Jacqueline Bortiatynski, a chemistry lecturer, co-founded the Summer Experience at the Eberly College of Science.

This six-week summer program was designed to engage low-income high school students in science research.

[3] She also participated in Exploration Day, a local event emphasizing practical science learning for families, and Penn State Astronomy's Astrofest and Astronight, annual events held to promote astronomy and science to families in the Central Pennsylvania area.

Richards was a mentor and an advocate for the promotion of young people, including women and other underrepresented groups, in physics and astronomy.

At first, it was widely used in medicine or archeology,[10] but Richards found the utility of this to test the gas-flow model that she created for her doctoral thesis.

As well as verifying the accuracy of her model, she could demonstrate that the gravity force acts in binary stars as the physical laws predicted.

Richards also worked with a team of Russian scientists to continue with her studies about the gas flows between binary stars.

Within the field of stellar astrophysics,[4] she created three-dimensional "movies" of mass-exchange systems by scrutinizing spectroscopic and photometric time series of stars and compact objects in close orbit.

[4] In 2005, she was elected Honorary Member of the National Honor Society of Phi Eta Sigma in the Pennsylvania State University.