Louise Richardson

Dame Louise Mary Richardson (born 8 June 1958 ) is an Irish political scientist whose specialist field is the study of terrorism.

In January 2023, she became president of the philanthropic foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York.

After attending primary school at The Star of the Sea convent girls' school in Tramore, and St Angela's Secondary School, Ursuline Convent, Waterford, In 1976, she received a Rotary Scholarship to study at the University of California for one year, then returned to Trinity College, Dublin to obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1980.

As an undergraduate, Richardson was a student activist and chair of the campus Anti-Apartheid Society, which opposed the South African government's racist policies

After Trinity College, Dublin, Richardson took an MA degree in political science from UCLA in 1981, followed by a move to Harvard, where she received a Master of Arts degree in government in 1984 and a PhD in 1989 on how allies manage crises in which interests diverge, relating specifically to the Falklands War and Suez Crisis.

Based on her earlier involvement with the anti-apartheid movement, Richardson joined the supporters who travelled to Johannesburg in 1985 with the Dunnes Stores strikers — Irish workers who had walked off the job after refusing to handle fruit from South Africa.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu had invited the group to see the living conditions under apartheid, but when they landed in the country, they were detained at the airport by armed security guards.

The workers were denied entry, creating an international uproar, while Richardson and two researchers stayed on to conduct interviews on conditions, working alongside the South African Council of Churches.

From 1989 to 2001, Richardson was as an assistant professor and then associate professor in the Department of Government at Harvard University.

During this period she was also for eight years head tutor and chair of the board of tutors (Director of Undergraduate Studies) in the Department of Government.

Richardson continued to work in numerous administrative capacities at Harvard, including the Faculty Council and various committees concerned with undergraduate education, the status of women, and human rights.

Richardson's academic focus was on international security with an emphasis on terrorist movements in the 1990s.

She was instrumental in the transformation of Radcliffe, after it formally merged with Harvard University in 1999.

Richardson helped turn the former women's college into an interdisciplinary center promoting scholarship across a wide range of academic fields and the creative arts.

According to the Radcliffe Quarterly, Richardson was central to all administrative and academic activities.

She managed the budget, infrastructure, and staff, while also overseeing a dramatic, multiyear renovation of three iconic buildings: the Schlesinger Library, the Radcliffe Gym, and Byerly Hall.

Richardson's scholarly profile at Radcliffe increased after the September 11 attacks, and her expertise helped to shield Harvard from criticism about the paucity of its terrorism course offerings.

Richardson was asked to give lectures to a variety of audiences – policymakers, the military, intelligence agencies and business communities – as well as testifying before the US Senate.

She continued to teach, both at Harvard College and Harvard Law School, and to write extensively.

In July 2001, Richardson was appointed executive dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

In 2006, Richardson authored her first of several books, What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat, about the roots of terrorism and the

Bush Administration's counterterrorism policies.

The New York Times called it "the overdue and essential primer on terrorism and how to tackle it," while the Financial Times said it was a rare academic work, “a bestseller with no trade-off between accessibility and scholarly rigour.” And the New York Review of Books commented: “One would like to see the entire US national security establishment frog-marched into Richardson's Terrorism 101.”

In 2009, Richardson was appointed principal of the University of St Andrews, succeeding Brian Lang.

Her installation took place on 25 March 2009.

She is the first woman, as well as the first Roman Catholic in modern times, to occupy the position.

In 2009, Richardson took another controversial stand by withdrawing official recognition of the Kate Kennedy Club.

She was appointed professor of international relations at St Andrews in November 2010.

Unlike previous principals, Richardson was not granted honorary membership to the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, which was all-male.

Richardson spoke out about how the membership policies interfered with fundraising and the values of the university.

Richardson characterized her general disapproval of elite, private clubs saying, "I understand people's desire to want to surround themselves with people like themselves. Where it becomes a problem, it seems to me, is when that group of people have access to a unique set of privileges from which others are excluded at birth."

When Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences presented its Centennial Award for distinguished alumni to Richardson in 2013, the official citation noted her contributions to the field: "The lessons she began to teach us — before we knew how much we needed them — grow more relevant with each new incident of terror our world faces."

Richardson taught Harvard's large undergraduate lecture course, Terrorist Movements in International Relations, for which she won the

Levenson Prize, awarded by the undergraduate student body to the best teachers at the university.

This class, along with a number of graduate courses on terrorist movements and European terrorism, were for many years the only courses offered on the subject at Harvard.

Richardson also received teaching awards from the American Political Science Association and Pi Sigma Alpha for outstanding teaching in political science; the Abramson Award in recognition of her "excellence and sensitivity in teaching undergraduates" and many awards from the Bok Center for Teaching Excellence.

Richardson's concerns helped mobilize a drive to admit women, and in 2014, members of the golf club voted to change the policy.

In January 2016, she became the vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, having formerly been the principal and vice-chancellor of the University of St Andrews, and as the executive dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.

Her leadership at the University of Oxford played an important role in the successful development of a vaccine to combat COVID-19.

Richardson grew up in Tramore, County Waterford, one of seven children of Arthur and Julie Richardson.