He graduated in 1970 with a bachelor's degree[1] in biochemistry from Purdue University, where his teachers included Larry G. Butler (died 1997) and Michael G. Rossmann.
Richmond graduated in 1975 from Yale University's department of molecular biophysics and biochemistry with a dissertation on protein-DNA interaction under the supervision of Frederic M. Richards and Thomas A. Steitz.
[3]The interests of Prof. Richmond in teaching and research are primarily devoted to the recognition and assembly of biological macromolecular complexes.
Their work on the nucleosome core particle, the fundamental repeating unit of chromatin, resulted ultimately in its atomic description at 1.9 å resolution.
[11] In 2023, Timothy J. Richmond, Daniela Rhodes and Karolin Luger were awarded the WLA Prize in Life Science or Medicine "for elucidating the structure of the nucleosome at the atomic level, providing the basis for understanding chromatin, gene regulation, and epigenetics.