Waterford-bound: Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford designate, Professor Louise Richardson.
Tramore native and Vice-Chancellor designate of Oxford University, Professor Louise Richardson, is to deliver the next Waterford Treasures lecture on Monday, September 28th where she will discuss
international terrorism.
Ms Richardson, a renowned political scientist and an expert on international terrorism, will take up the post of Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford next year.
Currently Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of St Andrews, Scotland, the first woman to hold that position and the first Catholic in modern times, Ms Richardson will deliver her address in the Theatre Royal at 7.30pm on the 28th (Tickets: €12).
Said Waterford Treasures Director Eamonn McEneaney: “I was personally delighted when Professor Louise Richardson conferred on the Museum the great honour of giving the next Waterford Treasures Talk. The presentation by this distinguished Waterford woman should be fascinating.”
Prof Richardson received a BA in History from Trinity College, Dublin, an MA in Political Science from UCLA, and an MA and PhD in Government from Harvard.
She served as Assistant and Associate Professor in the Harvard Government Department from 1989 to2001 and served as Head Tutor for several of those years.
She was awarded both the Levenson Prize and the Abramson Prize for her commitment to teaching. She served as Executive Dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard 2001-2008 where she was instrumental in its transformation from a women’s college into an interdisciplinary centre promoting scholarship across academic fields and the creative arts.
A political scientist by training, Professor Richardson has specialised in international security with an emphasis on terrorist movements. She has served on the editorial boards of a number of journals and presses and been awarded numerous prizes including the Sumner Prize for work towards the prevention of war and the establishment of universal peace. She has lectured on the subject of terrorism and counter-terrorism to public, professional, media and education groups across the world.
In 2009, she received the Trinity College Dublin Alumni Award and a year later was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
In 2011, she was appointed to the Scottish Government’s Council of Economic Advisers, a position she held for three years. In 2012, ahead of the centenary in 2014 of the outbreak of World War One, Prof Richardson was appointed to the Scottish Commemorations Panel.
Harvard University awarded her The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Centennial Medal in 2013, and later in the year she received an honorary doctorate from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). She also serves on the boards of a number of non-profit groups including the Carnegie Corporation and the Booker Prize Foundation.