Mercedes Richards

She was born in Kingston, Jamaica, on 14 May 1955.[1] In one of the city's suburbs, she was raised by her father,[6] Frank Davis,[1] a police detective who stressed to her the importance of observation and deduction, and her mother,[6] Phyllis Davis,[1] an accountant who instilled in her the idea of doing her work with precision.

Richards and her father would go to a botanical garden after dawn and observe the nature around them. He taught her to identify the colour varieties, training that would be useful in her career for the examination of stars.

"What I do is definitely detective work," she explains. "Astronomers want to know what happened. We look for evidence. We have to piece it all together like forensic scientists of the sky."[6]

She attended Providence Primary School and graduated in 1966.[1] Then, she studied in St. Hugh's High School, an all-girls high school. The fact of only having female teachers inspired her because she used them as role models. She graduated in 1973.[6]

Richards graduated with the degree of BSc with Special Honors in Physics from the University of the West Indies in 1977 and in 1979 she earned a MS in Space Science at York University in Toronto.[1] Persistence during her studies in Toronto helped her in a time where teachers were really tough with female students. She received her PhD in Astronomy and Astrophysics in 1986 at the University of Toronto.[6]

She married Donald Richards in 1980,[1] a professor of Statistics at Pennsylvania State University. They had two daughters, Chandra and Suzanne.[2]

Even though she had little free time, she enjoyed reading detective novels[6] and writing poetry. She liked playing the violin and she passed some exams of the British Royal School of Music. Richards spoke French fluently and had a working knowledge of Spanish, Slovak, Czech and German. Along with her many refined hobbies, she maintained a concern with the most vulnerable part and cooperated with food banks.[1]

During the 1986–87 scholar year, she worked as a visiting scholar at the University of North Carolina.[1] In 1987, she joined the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she started as an assistant professor in the Department of Astronomy. At this university she moved up to associate professor in 1993 and became a professor of astronomy in 1999.[3] During that year she worked at the Vatican Observatory in Castel Gandolfo. One year later, in 2000, she visited the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, as an invited scientist.

In 2002, she was hired as professor of astronomy and astrophysics in the Pennsylvania State University, where she worked until her passing. During her tenure, she was appointed assistant department chair.[7] However, she visited some universities during that period, among them, the University of Heidelberg, Germany, in 2013.[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.[6]

In 2011, Richards organized the IAU symposium in Slovakia, the first joint international meeting between binary star specialists.[8] She also participated in programs of math and science enrichment for high-school students in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Vermont, Virginia and Toronto.[9]

Richards served as an officer in some astronomical organizations, for example, as president of Commission 42 of the IAU, member of the Board of Advisers of the Caribbean Institute of Astronomy or councilor of the American Astronomical Society.[1] Additionally, she was part of the Eberly College of Science’s Climate and Diversity Committee, an organization whose aim was to create a good environment for all members of the college.[3]

On the other hand, she led multiple research studies in different parts of the world: at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, at the Skalnaté Pleso Observatory and the one in Lomnický štít, Slovakia, the South African Astronomical Observatory in Cape Town, the Spanish National Observatory in Madrid and the Teide Observatory in Tenerife.[1]

Apart from that, she was committed to science, so she was involved in some programs to encourage people's engagement with it. In 2006, she and Jacqueline Bortiatynski, a chemistry lecturer, co-founded the Summer Experience in 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.[8]