[5] Born in Oklahoma in 1942, Richard Allan Andersen was raised and educated in the small town of Yankton, South Dakota.
[5] Andersen pursued graduate studies at the University of Wyoming, working under the supervision of Professor Geoffrey Coates.
[13] On the day it was announced that Geoffrey Wilkinson and Ernst O. Fisher would share the 1973 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Andersen received an offer to conduct his postdoctoral research in Wilkinson's laboratory at Imperial College London.
[6] He also studied actinide coordination complexes bearing the sterically bulky amido ligand –N(SiMe3)2, including the uranium(III) compound U[N(SiMe3)2]3,[6][15] which was later found to have pyramidal geometry.
[16] Andersen was awarded many Visiting Professorships around the world, including appointments in Sevilla, Lyon, Montpellier, New South Wales, and Zurich.