Dr. Richardson is a practicing emergency physician and a nationally recognized expert in health services research, focusing on access to care and healthcare disparities. Her work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. She is skilled in the use of clinical and administrative data to investigate issues of access, quality and equity; in developing and assessing the effectiveness of strategies to eliminate healthcare disparities; and in designing innovative models of care. She is an expert on community engagement and a national thought leader in the ethics of conducting emergency research; her "Community VOICES" studies have defined best practices for community consultation for research conducted with an exception from informed consent. In 2012, she received a Health Care Innovation Award from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid to implement a new model of emergency care for older adults.
Dr. Richardson is particularly committed to collaborations that involve multidisciplinary team science. She currently leads the New York City Sickle Cell Implementation Science Consortium and is a PI for the New York City Center of the Prevention and Early Treatment of Acute Lung Injury (PETAL) Clinical Trials Research Network, which is currently conducting several COVID-related trials. Dr. Richardson has a strong track record of mentoring young investigators to productive academic careers: she was Director of an NHLBI-funded K12 Research Career Development Programs in Emergency Medicine and of the nation’s first T32 Research Fellowship Program in Emergency Care Research.
Dr. Richardson, who has made highly influential contributions to eliminating healthcare disparities in both the research and policy arenas, is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and serves on the Board on Health Sciences Policy of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. She is the Chair of the Health Services: Quality and Effectiveness Study Section and a member of the New York City Board of Health. She previously served on the Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) of the Centers for Disease Control and chaired their Health Disparities Subcommittee. Dr. Richardson is a Past Chair of the American College of Emergency Physicians Public Health Committee and a current member of the Board of Trustees of the Emergency Medicine Foundation.