Biography
Dr. Kathleen Richardson is UCF Trustee Chair, Pegasus Professor of Optics and Materials Science and Engineering and Florida Photonics Center of Excellence (FPCE) Professor at CREOL/College of Optics and Photonics at the University of Central FL, where she runs the Glass Processing and Characterization Laboratory (GPCL).
Prof. Richardson and her research team carry out design, synthesis and characterization of novel glass, glass ceramic and ceramic materials for optical applications, examining the role of structure/property relationships on resulting optical function and performance in bulk, planar and fiber optical materials. Her team is a leading source of global expertise and workforce development in the design, fabrication and characterization of next generation materials for use in infrared components and systems based on diverse optical applications. Her group benefits from extensive industrial and government-supported research developing novel materials and metrology methodologies for broadband infrared (IR) optical systems. Active programs include efforts on gradient refractive index (GRIN) optics, optical phase change materials, evaluation of complex multi-material interactions in next-generation integrated opto-electronic chip design, environmentally-dependent IR material metrology testing and in optical nano-composites for advanced chem-bio and detection applications.
A fellow of multiple optics (Optica, SPIE), glass (Society of Glass Technology, SGT) and ceramic (American (ACerS) and European (ECerS) Ceramic Society) professional organizations, Kathleen has authored more than 295 peer-reviewed publications, numerous proceedings and book chapters, and hosts a broad portfolio of IP related to these advances. In addition, she and has organized and chaired multiple domestic and international meetings within her discipline.
Awards & Honors
- European Ceramic Society (ECerS) Fellow (Hon.)
- Optical Society of America (OSA) Fellow
- International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) Fellow
- American Ceramic Society (ACerS) Distinguished Life Member, Fellow
- Society of Glass Technology (SGT) Fellow
- 2022 Varshneya Frontiers in Glass Science Award – ACerS
- 2021 Joint ECerS-ACerS Award
- 2020 SPIE Maria J. Yzuel Outstanding Educator Award
- 2020 The American Ceramic Society’s Greaves-Walker Award
- 2019 The Arthur L. Friedberg Award and Lecture
- 2019 Alfred R. Cooper Lecturer Award
- 2018 Pegasus Professor Award
- 2017 Sir Richard Brooks International Award, European Ceramic Society
- 2017 George W. Morey Award, American Ceramic Society
- 2017 IDeX Visiting Scholar, Université Bordeaux (FRANCE)
- 2017 Malcolm G. McClaren Distinguished Lecturer Award Rutgers University Department of Materials Science
- 2017 Excellence in Research Award
- 2016 OSA 100th anniversary Global Women of Light panelist
- 2016 Advisory Board member, Savannah River National Laboratory
- 2016 External Advisor, EUCerMat program (EU)
- 2016 Curator, Ernst Abbe Foundation (Germany)
- 2016 Nominee, Air Force Science Advisory Board
- 2015 Academician, World Academy of Ceramics
- 2013 Indian Ceramic Society I.D. Varshnei Award
- 2009 Award for Faculty Excellence, Clemson University Board of Trustees (2005, 2007, 2009)
- 2009 Outstanding Educator Award, American Ceramic Society, Ceramic Education Council (CEC)
- 2009 Member, Tau Beta Pi Honor Society
- 2008 Samuel R. Scholes Lecture and Award, Alfred University, Kazuo Inamori School of Engineering
- 2008 Featured lecturer, SPIE Women in Optics Lecture, SPIE Photonics West meeting, San Jose CA
- 2006 Featured Scientist, in Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE), “Women in Optics”
Research Group
Infrared optical glass, glass ceramics and ceramics, photosensitive infrared materials, integrated MIR Planar sensors, optics manufacturing science, infrared optical metrology, graded index optical materials.
Research Scientists
Graduate Students
Undergraduate Research Assistants
Publications
A. Kostogiannes, N.G. Rudawski, B. Ellsworth, A. Howe, B. Butkus, A. Cooper, K.A. Richardson, R. Gaume, P. Banerjee "High-temperature annealing of calcium lanthanum sulfide " Journal of the European Ceramic Society, Volume: 45, Issue: 4, Year: 2025 (2025)
Thomas J. Loretz, Rashi Sharma, Anna Zachariou, Richard A. Loretz, Myungkoo Kang and Kathleen A. Richardson "An Innovative Measurement Protocol for Determining the True Glass Transition Temperature of Chalcogenide Glasses by Differential Scanning Calorimetry " J. Opt. and Phot. Research (2025) 1–10 (2025)
Cosmin Constantin Popescu, Kiumars Aryana, Brian Mills, Tae Woo Lee, Louis Martin-Monier, Luigi Ranno, Jia Xu Brian Sia, Khoi Phuong Dao, Hyung-Bin Bae, Vladimir Liberman, Steven Vitale, Myungkoo Kang, Kathleen A. Richardson, Carlos A. R´ios Ocampo, Dennis Calahan, Yifei Zhang, William M. Humphreys, Hyun Jung Kim, Tian Gu, Juejun Hu "Understanding and circumventing failure mechanisms in chalcogenide optical phase change material Ge2Sb2Se4Te" Adv. Opt. Mats. (2024) 10.1002/adom.202402751 (2025)
Andrew Howe, Mark Martino, Kathleen A. Richardson, and Romain Gaume "The Total Uncertainty of a Prism Coupling Refractometry Instrument Modified for the Infrared" Optical Engineering, Volume: 64 Issue: 2 Article Number: 024108 (2025)
Alexandros Kostogiannes, Nicholas G. Rudawski, Brianna Ellsworth, Andrew Howe, Brian Butkus, Andrew Cooper, Kathleen A. Richardson, Romain Gaume, Parag Banerjee "High temperature annealing behavior of calcium lanthanum sulfide ceramics" J. European Cer. Soc., 45 (2025) 117062 (2025)
P. E. Lynch, L. Tran, E. A. Yamac, G. B. J. Sop Tagne, C. J. Cano, P. M. Marrero, A. J. Phillips, R. S. Welch, D. Wiedeman, R. Sharma, K. A. Richardson, S. Feller, W. LaCourse, S. I. Yaniger, C. J. Wilkinson, and M. Kang "Accelerated Low-Temperature Stabilization of Glasses via Thermo-Ultrasonication " submitted, Applied Materials Today (2024) (2024)
Marie Sykes, Casey Schwarz, Rashi Sharma, Eric Bissell, Kathleen Richardson, Parag Banerjee "Bioactive Glass Beads as a Route to Passive Drug Delivery " MRS Advances, Volume: 9, Issue: 19, Page: 1501-1504, Special Issue: SI, Year: 2024 (2024)
Alvarez, R; Zachariou, A; Mingareev, I; Loretz, TJ; Sharma, R; Cook, J ; Blanco, C; Richardson, MC ; Howe, A; Lynch, PE; Tagne, GBJS; Wang, K; Klucinec, J; Kang, MYK; Richardson, KA "Photothermally-Engineered Crystallization of GAP-Se Bulk Chalcogenide Nanocomposites toward the Realization of 3D Gradient Refractive Index Profiles " Advanced Optical Materials, Volume: 12, Issue: 36, (2024) (2024)
Wiedeman, D (Wiedeman, Daniel) [1] ; Sharma, R (Sharma, Rashi) [1] ; Bissell, E (Bissell, Eric) [2] ; Banerjee, P (Banerjee, Parag) [2] ; Schwarz, C (Schwarz, Casey) [3] ; Mills, B (Mills, Brian) [4] , [5] ; Hu, JJ (Hu, Juejun) [4] ; Callahan, D (Callahan, Dennis) [6] ; Richardson, KA (Richardson, Kathleen a.) [2] , [7] "Solution-based processing of Ge2Sb2Se4Te optical phase change materials " Optical Materials Express, Volume: 14, Issue: 12, Page: 2874-2883, (2024) (2024)
Daniel Wiedeman, Rashi Sharma, Eric Bissel, Parag Banerjee, Casey Schwarz, Brian Mills, Juejun Hu, Dennis Callahan and Kathleen A. Richardson "Solution-Based Processing of Ge2Sb2Se4Te1 Thin Films for Optical Phase Change Materials" Opt. Mat. Exp. 14 (12), 2874-2883 (2024) (2024)
H. Soufiani, A. Kostogiannes, C. Rivero-Baleine, K.A. Richardson, R. Gaume "On the Surface Hardening of Zinc Sulfide Windows by Gallium Sulfide " Materials, Volume: 17, Issue: 22, Year: 2024 (2024)
Roberto Alvarez, Anna Zachariou, Ilya Mingareev, Thomas J. Loretz, Rashi Sharma, Justin Cook, Cesar Blanco, Martin C. Richardson, Andrew Howe, Myungkoo Kang and Kathleen A. Richardson "Photothermally-Engineered Crystallization of GAP-Se Bulk Chalcogenide Nanocomposites Towards the Realization of Three-Dimensional Gradient Refractive Index Profiles" Adv. Opt. Mat. (2024) 10.1002/adom.202401552 (2024)
Parth Garud, Kiumars Aryana, Cosmin Constantin Popescu, Steven Vitale, Rashi Sharma, Kathleen Richardson, Tian Gu, Juejun Hu, and Hyun Jung Kim "Robust electrothermal switching of optical phase change materials through computer-aided adaptive pulse optimization" Physica Status Solidi (RRL) - Rapid Research Letters, (2024) 2400177 (2024)
A. Howe, K. Moutzouris, K.A. Richardson, R. Gaume "A Fresnel-Based Fitting Approach to Improve the Standard Deviation of a Prism Coupling Refractometry Instrument Modified for the Infrared" Optical Engineering, (2024) 63 (10), 104101, (2024) (2024)
Cosmin Constantin Popescu, Kiumars Aryana, Parth Garud, Khoi Phuong Dao, Steven Vitale, Vladimir Liberman, Hyung-Bin Bae, Tae-Woo Lee, Myungkoo Kang, Kathleen A. Richardson, Carlos A. R´ios Ocampo, Yifei Zhang, Tian Gu, Juejun Hu, and Hyun Jung Kim "Electrically reconfigurable phase-change transmissive metasurface" Advanced Materials 36 (36) (2024) (2024)
Alexandros Kostogiannes, Brian Butkus, Brianna Ellsworth, Andrew Howe, Andrew Cooper, Parag Banerjee, Romain Gaume, and Kathleen Richardson "Evidence for substitutional oxygen in gamma-Calcium Lanthanum Sulfide" submitted, J. of Alloys and Compounds (2024) (2024)
Kang, MK ; Sohn, BU ; Du, QY ; Ma, DH ; Pujari, R ; Sisken, L ; Blanco, C ; Goncalves, C ; Arias, C ; Zachariou, A; Yadav, A ; Lynch, PE ; Lee, JAT (Lee, Jonathan) [5] ; Novak, S (Novak, Spencer) [6] ; Schwarz, CM (Schwarz, Casey M.) [7] ; Luzinov, I (Luzinov, Igor) [6] ; Hu, JJ (Hu, Juejun) [4] ; Agarwal, AM;Tan, DTH; Richardson, KA "Self-healing mechanisms for Ge-Sb-S chalcogenide glasses upon gamma irradiation" MRS Bulletin 49(8) pp 778-786 (2024)
M. Kang, B. -U. Sohn, Q. Du, D. Ma, R. Pujari, L. Sisken, C. Blanco, C. Goncalves, C. Arias, A. Yadav, S. Novak, C. M. Schwarz, R. Gaume, J. Hu, A. M. Agarwal, D. T. H. Tan, and K. A. Richardson "Self-healing mechanisms for Ge–Sb–S chalcogenide glasses upon gamma irradiation" Mat. Res. Bull. 49 (8) 2024 (2024)
Myungkoo Kang, Rashi Sharma, Cesar Blanco, Daniel Wiedeman, Quentin Altemose, Patrick E. Lynch, Gil B. J. Sop Tagne, Yifei Zhang, Mikhail Y. Shalaginov, Cosmin-Constantin Popescu, Brandon M. Triplett, Clara Rivero-Baleine, Casey M. Schwarz, Anuradha M. Agarwal, Tian Gu, Juejun Hu, and Kathleen A. Richardson "Solution-Derived Ge-Sb-Se-Te phase change chalcogenide films" Sci. Reports 14:18151 (2024) (2024)
Sharma, R (Sharma, Rashi) ; Schwarz, C (Schwarz, Casey) ; Wiedeman, D (Wiedeman, Daniel) ; Bissell, ETS (Bissell, Eric T. S.) ; Mills, B (Mills, Brian) ; Sykes, M (Sykes, Marie) ; Stackawitz, J (Stackawitz, Jasper) ; Klucinec, J (Klucinec, Jake); Callahan, D (Callahan, Dennis) ; Hu, JJ (Hu, Juejun) ; Banerjee, P (Banerjee, Parag) ; Richardson, K (Richardson, Kathleen) "Solution-based Sb2Se3 thin films for microphotonics" Journal of Optical Microsystem 4(2) 2024 Article Number 031203 (2024)
Alumni
PhD
Hayat Soufiani, Materials Science Ph.D., Spring 2025Jennifer Hewitt, Optics Ph.D., Spring 2024
Laura Sisken, Optics Ph.D., Fall 2017
Antoine Lepicard, Materials Science Ph.D., Fall 2016
Clara Rivero Baleine, Optics Ph.D., Spring 2005
Cedric Lopez, Optics Ph.D., Spring 2004
Hugues Francois-Saint-Cyr, Materials Science Ph.D., Spring 2001
MS
Alexandros Kostogiannes, Materials Science M.S., Spring 2024Andrew Buff, Materials Science M.S., Summer 2016