CURRICULUM VITAE

Birth: Québec, Province de Québec, Canada

Education:

Bacc. ès Arts, Université Laval 1956.
Bacc. ès Sciences, Université Laval 1960.
Doctorat de 3ème Cycle, spéciality Physique Théorique, Université de Paris 1963.
Doctorat d'État ès Sciences Physiques, Université de Paris 1965.

Experience in Higher Education and Research:

1963-1964 Attaché de Recherches, CNRS, Paris
1965-1968 Research Associate, (Department of Physics), University of Maryland, College Park.
1968-1973 Assistant Professor, (Department of Physics), University of Maryland, College Park.
1973-1981 Associate Professor, (Department of Physics), University of Maryland, College Park.
1981-1995 Professor of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park.
1995-1998 Professor Emeritus of Physics and Senior Research Scientist,
                   University of Maryland, College Park.
1998-         Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park.

Special Research Related Items:

1980:         Special Citation: In the 1981 budget submitted by the President to Congress for the Physics Division of the National Science Foundation, eight items are cited under the label "Significant Recent Achievements". The first item is the understanding of the weak force crowned by the 1979 Nobel Prize in physics. The sixth item is my January 1979 proposal of the multimode gravitational wave bar detector to achieve both high sensitivity and wide bandwidth (pages A-III-2 and 3).

2016:         Special Recognition as a pioneer for contributions in the global effort toward the direct detection of gravitational waves during the University of Maryland event "A Celebrations of Gravitational Waves" of November 1, 2016. That celebration followed the announcement by the LIGO and Virgo groups in February 11, 2016 of the first direct detection of gravitational waves. Other university of Maryland experimentalists recognized on that occation were Joseph Weber and Ho Jung Paik. Weber is recognized as the very first to work on the direct detection of gravitational waves and the first to consider use of laser interferometry for that purpose.

2017:         On October 3rd, the Nobel prize in Physics was awarded to Reiner Weiss, Kip S. Thorne and Barry C. Barish "for their decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational wave". Ron Drever who passed away March 7, 2017 also made decisive contributions to the design of LIGO. Richard Isaacson, director of the National Science Foundation's program for gravitational physics from 1973 to 2002 work successfully for NSF and Congress support of LIGO. Over the years, more than 1000 scientists from 67 organisations from various countries joined in the successful LIGO-Virgo effort.

2017:         On August 17, the merger of two neutron stars was directly observed for the first time. There, in addition to the gravitational waves detected by LIGO and Virgo, electromagnetic radiation extending from gamma rays through the visible spectrum to radio waves was equally observed over a period of a few weeks. Observatories from many countries involving more than 3500 scientists participated in these observations.
                  The observation of the neutron stars merger permitted a first time observation of the formation of heavy elements. A theory of such processes was confirmed, bringing an important addition to our understanding of the formation of elements in the universe.
                  The observation of gravitational waves and electromagnetic radiation from a collision of two neutron stars is perceived as a new era of "Multi-Messenger Astrophysics". It is expected that it will result in an intensification of the international collaboration and further development of the astrophysics observation infrastructure.

2021:        Publication on Jan 28, 2021 of a WIKIPEDIA page on my work related to Gravitational Wave research. The page is visible at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Richard

Others:

Visiting Professor, University of Rome La Sapienza, 1978-1979
Visiting Professor, Université Laval, Québec, Summer/Fall 1993.

Mailing address:

Department of Physics,
University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742
Tel: 301-405-6094; email: jrtf@umd.edu