Biography
Dr. Kathleen Richardson is currently Pegasus Professor of Optics and Materials Science and Engineering at CREOL/College of Optics and Photonics at the University of Central FL, where she runs the Glass Processing and Characterization Laboratory (GPCL). In 2018, she was appointed a Florida Photonics Center of Excellence (FPCE) professor for her ongoing commitments to education and research supporting industry. Prof. Richardson and her research team carry out synthesis and characterization of novel glass and glass 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. Dr. Richardson’s group has extensive industrial and government supported research developing novel materials for gradient refractive index (GRIN) optics, precision molded optics, evaluation of complex multi-material interactions in next-generation integrated opto-electronic chip design, and in optical nano-composites for advanced chem-bio and detection applications. Prof. Richardson’s group is a leading source of global expertise in the design, fabrication and characterization of next generation materials for use in infrared components and systems based on diverse optical applications. She has authored more than 250 peer-reviewed publications, numerous proceedings and book chapters, has a broad portfolio of IP related to these advances, and has organized and chaired multiple domestic and international meetings within her discipline.
In 2016, Dr. Richardson was appointed as Curator to the Board of Trustees for the Ernst Abbe Fund, Deutsches Stiftung, GERMANY, and was elected as an Academician of the World Academy of Ceramics. Prof. Richardson has an extensive record of prior service, previously serving on the Board of Directors of the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) and the American Ceramic Society (ACerS), as an external advisory/scientific board member for the Savannah River National Laboratory (US Dept. of Energy), Virginia Tech’s Materials Science and Engineering Department, the NSF-ERC on Mid-Infrared Technologies for Health and the Environment (MIRTHE) at Princeton University and as part of the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Ultrahigh-bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS), in Sydney Australia.
Dr. Richardson is Past-President of the American Ceramic Society (ACerS), a past-Chair of ACerS’ Glass and Optical Materials Division (GOMD) and a past-President of the National Institute of Ceramic Engineers (NICE). She presently serves on the Coordinating Technical Committee (CTC) and Advisory Committee (AC) of the International Commission on Glass (ICG).
Professor Richardson is a recognized world leader in infrared glass research and education, and because of these efforts, currently holds the rank of Fellow, in the American Ceramic Society, the Society of Glass Technology (UK), SPIE and the Optical Society of America (OSA). Since 2006, she has served as a member of the Board of Trustees at Alfred University.
Awards & Honors
- European Ceramic Society Fellow
- Optical Society of America (OSA) Fellow
- International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) Fellow
- American Ceramic Society (ACerS) Fellow
- Society of Glass Technology Fellow
- 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”
- 2003 Society of Glass Technology (SGT), United Kingdom, Fellow
Research Group
Infrared optical glass and glass ceramics, photosensitive infrared materials, integrated MIR Planar sensors, optics manufacturing science, mid-infrared optical metrology, precision glass molding (PGM), graded index optical materials.Faculty
Research Staff
Graduate Students
Eric Bissell
Grad Student Hourly
Brian Butkus
Materials Science M.S.
Brianna Ellsworth
Andrew Howe
Optics Ph.D.
Alexandros Kostogiannes
Materials Science M.S.
Hayat Soufiani
Materials Science Ph.D.
Anna Zachariou
Optics Ph.D.
Undergraduate Research Assistants
Andrew Cooper
Daniel Wiedeman
Publications
Cosmin-Constantin Popescu, Khôi Phuong Ðào, Luigi Ranno, Brian Mills, Louis Martin, Yifei Zhang, David Bono. Brian Neltner, Tian Gu, Juejun Hu, "An Open-Source Multi-functional Testing Platform for Optical Phase Change Materials" Small Science (2023) PDF
Y. Luo, C.Sun, M. Wei, H. Ma, Y. Wu, Z. Chen, H. Dai, J. Jian, B. Sun, C. Zhong, J. Li, K. A. Richardson, H. Lin and L. Li "Integrated flexible microscale mechanical sensors based on cascaded FSR-free cavities" Nano Letters (2023) (2023)
Myungkoo Kang, Brandon M. Triplett, Mikhail Y. Shalaginov, Skylar Deckoff-Jones, Cesar Blanco, Mia Truman, Elena Shirshneva Vashchenko, Justin Cook, Qingyang Du, Tushar S. Karnik, Cosmin-Constantine Popescu, Anna Zachariou, Yifei Zhang, Casey M. Schwarz, Sensong An, Clayton Fowler, Hualiang Zhang, Ivan Divliansky, Leonid B. Glebov, Martin C. Richardson, Anuradha M. Agarwal, Tian Gu, Clara Rivero-Baleine, Juejun Hu, and Kathleen A. Richardson "Photochemically-Engineered Programmable Large-Area Conformal Arsenic Sulfide Micro-Gratings for Hybrid Diffractive-Refractive Infrared Platforms" in press, Photonics Research (2023)
Brian Butkus, Alexandros Kostogiannes, Andrew Howe, Myungkoo Kang, Romain Gaume, Kathleen A. Richardson, Parag Banerjee "Zinc Sulfide CVD Optical Ceramic Analyzed by XPS " Surface Science Spectra 30, (2) (2023)
Jiawei Meng, Yaliang Gui, Behrouz Movahhed Nouri, Xiaoxuan Ma, Yifei Zhang, Cosmin- Constantin Popescu, Myungkoo Kang, Mario Miscuglio, Nicola Peserico, Kathleen Richardson, Juejun Hu, Hamed Dalir, Volker J. Sorger "Electrical Programmable Multi-Level Nonvolatile Photonic Random-Access Memory" Light: Science & Applications 12 189 (2023)
B. Butkus, M. Havel, A. Kostogiannes, A. Howe, M. Kang, R. Gaume, K. A. Richardson, P. Banerjee "Calcium sulfide powder analyzed by XPS" Surface Science Spectra 30(1) (2023)
Brian Butkus, Matthew Havel, Alexandros Kostogiannes, Andrew Howe, Myungkoo Kang, Romain Gaume, Kathleen A. Richardson, Parag Banerjee "Lanthanum sulfide powder analyzed by XPS" Surface Science Spectra 30(1) (2023)
Wilfried Blanc, Yong Gyu Choi, Xianghua Zhang, Marcelo Nalin, Kathleen A. Richardson, Giancarlo C. Righini, Maurizio Ferrari, Animesh Jha, Jonathan Massera, Shibin Jiang, John Ballato, Laeticia Petit "The past, present and future of photonic glasses: A review in homage to the United Nations International Year of glass 2022" Progress in Materials Science, vol. 134 101084 (2023)
M. Havel, A. Kostogiannes, W. T. Shoulders, V. Blair, D. McGill, C. Rivero-Baleine, R. Bunijevac, J. Eichler, M. R. Kincer, M. Kang, K. A. Richardson, and R. Gaume, "Monitoring sulfur loss in polycrystalline solid solutions of CaS-La2S3 by Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction" Opt. Mater. Express 13, 504-513 (2023) (2023)
Myungkoo Kang, Kathleen A. Richardson "Engineering Multi-Material Solutions for Phase Change Materials-Based Integrated Photonics " iScience - Optical Phase Change Material Roadmap, submitted (2022)
John Ballato, Ulrich Fotheringham, Mathieu Hubert, Stefan Nolte, Laeticia Petit and Kathleen A. Richardson* "Celebrating Optical Glass – the International Year of Glass (2022): feature issue introduction" Opt. Mater. Exp. vol. 12 12 (2022) (2022)
A. Kostogiannes, R. Sharma, A. Howe, M. Chazot, M. Kang, J. Cook, K. Schepler, and K. A. Richardson "The Role of Powder Handling on Resulting Impurities in ZnSe-Doped As-S-Se Composite Materials" Opt. Mater. Exp. 12 (11) 4287-4298 (2022) (2022) PDF
Carlos Ríos, Qingyang Du, Yifei Zhang, Cosmin-Constantin Popescu, Mikhail Y. Shalaginov, Paul Miller, Christopher Roberts, Myungkoo Kang, Kathleen A. Richardson, Tian Gu, Steven A. Vitale and Juejun Hu "Ultra-compact nonvolatile phase shifter based on electrically reprogrammable transparent phase change materials" PhotonIX (2022) PDF
Pavel Shirshnev, Myungkoo Kang, Ivan Divliansky, Kathleen A. Richardson, and Leonid Glebov, "Engineered refractive and diffractive optical composites via photo-thermal processes " Opt. Mats. Exp. 12 (9) (2022) (2022) PDF
Corbin Feit, Jaynlynn Sosa, Alexandros Kostogiannes, Matthieu Chazot, Nicholas G. Rudawski, Titel Jurca, Kathleen A. Richardson, Parag Banerjee "Surface oxidation of ZnSe enhances growth of ALD aluminum oxide" J. Vac. Soc. and Tech. - A vol. 40 (5) (2022) PDF
Steven A. Vitale, Paul Miller, Paul Robinson, Christopher Roberts, Vlad Liberman, Carlos Ríos, Qingyang Du, Yifei Zhang, Cosmin-Constantin Popescu, Mikhail Y. Shalaginov, Myungkoo Kang, Kathleen A. Richardson, Tian Gu, Juejun Hu "Phase Transformation and Switching Behavior of Magnetron Plasma Sputtered Ge2Sb2Se4Te" Adv. Phot. Research 202200202 (2022) PDF
Y. Luo, C.L. Sun, H. Ma, M.L. Wei, J.Y. Li, J.L. Jian, C.Y. Zhong, Z.Q. Chen. R.J. Tang, K.A. Richardson, H.T. Lin, and L. Li "Flexible passive integrated photonic devices with superior optical and mechanical performance" Optics Express, 30(15), pp. 26534-26543 (2022) PDF
John Ballato, Angela Seddon, Alexis Clare, Laeticia Petit, Juejun Hu and Kathleen A. Richardson "Future of Optical Glass Education" Opt. Materials Express, 12 (7) 2022 (2022) PDF
Issue Lead Editor: Kathleen A. Richardson Co-editors: John Ballato, Ulrich Fotheringham, Mathieu Hubert, Stefan Nolte, and Laeticia Petit "Special Issue: Celebrating Optical Glass - International Year of Glass (2022)" Optical Materials Express, Special Issue (2022)
Jordan Goldstein, Hongtao Lin, Skylar Deckoff-Jones, Kathleen A. Richardson, Marek Hempel, Ang-Yu Lu, Jing Kong, Juejun Hu, and Dirk Englund, "Waveguide-Integrated Mid-Infrared Photodetection using Graphene on a Scalable Chalcogenide Glass Platform" Nature Comm. 13 3915 (2022) PDF
Alumni
PhD
Laura Sisken, Optics Ph.D., Fall 2017Antoine 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
Daniel McGill, Optics M.S., Spring 2019Andrew Buff, Materials Science M.S., Summer 2016