Education

B.S. Dickinson College
Ph.D. Princeton University

Biography

Frederick Smith Richardson 
Born June 8. 1939 in Carlisle, PA - Died April 25, 2024 in Charlottesville, VA

On the morning of April 25, our husband, father, grandfather, and great grandfather passed away peacefully after spending a laughter-filled weekend singing, telling stories and just remembering and celebrating family life together.

Fred's post high school years began at Dickinson College, followed by Princeton University, a two-year period in the Army and the University of California. In 1969 he and his family arrived in Charlottesville where he spent the next 38 years teaching in the Department of Chemistry at UVa.

Retirement at the foot of Flat Top Mountain in Dyke - "The Farm" - brought much pleasure to his life with the family and it gave him an opportunity to relive some of those earlier years growing up on a dairy farm in Pennsylvania.

He will be greatly missed by his wife, Joan, their four children, Julie, Elizabeth, Christine and Jonathan and their spouses, 10 grandchildren and spouses, and three great grandchildren. His spirit and life will continue to live on through the love of family, the many students he mentored along the way and the colleagues he worked beside as he carried out what his educational pursuits had prepared him for. He loved teaching!

During those retirement years, Fred served as a member of the Piedmont Virginia Community College (PVCC) board of directors, and also worked with young children in the Youth Development Council (YDC), an after-school mentoring program in the Greene County Schools. There, he was known there as "The Professor.”  YDC indicated that Fred made an "impact that reached far beyond the classroom walls". He loved sharing afternoons with the kids and he was forever teaching one thing or another - his choice!  Should you choose to honor something Fred especially enjoyed, donations can be sent to YDC, Post Office Box 1162, Stanardsville, VA 22973. 

A private celebration of his life will take place at the family farm later in the year.

***

Professor Frederick S. Richardson earned his B.S. degree at Dickinson College summa cum laude in 1961. In 1966, he received his Ph.D. at Princeton University working with Walter Kauzmann. He served in the US Army for two years before starting his NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of California, San Diego. In 1969, he joined the faculty in the Chemistry Department at the University of Virginia. Prof. Richardson served as chair of the department from 1983 – 87 and 1992 – 1997. In 1991, he was appointed a Commonwealth Professor. Prof. Richardson is an exceptional physical chemist and is known for his research, teaching, and mentorship.

He was appointed as a Henry Dreyfus Foundation Teacher-Scholar from 1973-78. He taught undergraduate general, physical, and biophysical chemistry, as well as, graduate courses in all areas of physical chemistry. He research supervised 36 Ph.D. students, 6 M.S. students and 28 postdoctoral fellows.

Prof. Richardson has published over 220 papers in scientific journals or books. His principal research interests are:

• Electronic structure and spectroscopy of molecules and ions in solution and in crystals.
• Natural and magnetic chiroptical properties of molecular systems.
• Intermolecular chiral recognition and discrimination phenomena.
• Spectroscopic probes of metal-ion coordination sites in biomolecular systems.
• Rare-earth chemistry and spectroscopy.
• Theory and measurement of nonlinear optical processes in condensed-phase materials.