Richard obtained a PhD in Molecular Biology at the University of Colorado, followed by an NIH fellowship at the Plant Breeding Institute in Cambridge where he was responsible for creating and distributing amongst the most widely cited and licensed plant biotechnologies. CAMBIA, an international non-profit institute based in Australia was founded in 1991 and is dedicated to development of tools and enabling technologies to promote equitable life sciences-enabled innovation worldwide.

The CAMBIA BiOS Initiative (www.bios.net) - the biological open source movement is an integrated response to increasing science and technology complexity, patent thickets and innovation system inefficiencies. As part of this work, CAMBIA created the Patent Lens, (www.patentlens.net), an independent, public-good global resource for increasing patent transparency. 

Richard has worked and taught extensively in the developing world, supporting the Rockefeller Foundation's biotechnology network for over ten years, and has worked as senior staff for the FAO, and consultant for other UN Agencies. He has been profiled in media including The Economist, Newsweek, Nature Biotechnology and Red Herring. CAMBIA's work has recently featured in cover editorials in most major life sciences journals.

In 2003 he was named by Scientific American to the List of the World's 50 most influential technologists, cited as the World Research Leader for 2003 for Economic Development. Richard is an Outstanding Social Entrepreneur of the Schwab Foundation, for which is a regular panelist at the Davos meetings of the World Economic Forum. 

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