Robert C. Richardson, a professor of physics at Cornell University, won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1996 for the discovery of superfluidity in helium-3. Richardson, along with David M. Lee of Cornell, and Douglas D. Osheroff of Stanford University, was recognized for this breakthrough work in low-temperature physics he and the other two scientists collaborated on in the 1970s at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, when Osheroff was a graduate student.

Born on June 26, 1937, in Washington, D.C., Robert Richardson received his Bachelor's and Master's of Science degrees from Virginia Polytechnic Institute in 1958 and 1960. On September 29, 1963, Richardson married Betty McCarthy. They have two daughters, Jennifer and Pamela. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from Duke University in 1966 and became a research associate at Cornell that same year. He became a full professor at Cornell in 1975. Richardson has been awarded two Guggenheim Fellowships, one in 1975 and one...