Hear from David Vernier and Steven Richardson about their careers and experiences and why they support the department.
David Vernier BS ’69
Beaverton, Oregon
David Vernier is the co-founder of Vernier Science Education, a company whose mission is to support educators in the sciences, develop high-quality products within a school’s budget, and promote fun, hands-on learning that engages students.
If you had any advice to offer current or future physics students, what would it be?
I would just stress to them that a physics degree is a great way to start a whole lot of careers. At our small company of 115 people, we have 15 physics majors working for us. Some of them do some physics-related work (developing products for physics teachers and technical support for physics instructors), but many do other things like programming, hardware engineering and management. We value a physics degree on an applicant's resume because it probably means they are smart and can learn new things, which are the key things a technology company looks for when hiring.
You started your career teaching physics and physical science in inner-city Cleveland. Did that experience help inspire you and your wife to start a company devoted to developing creative ways to teach and learn using hands-on science?
Absolutely. I found out right away that most of my students were not going to learn much if I stood up in front of the class and lectured. I decided labs and interesting demonstrations were the only way to go and I still feel that way. Some students learn well in lectures, but many more learn more and are more motivated by hands-on activities.
Following up on the previous question, tell us about Vernier Software & Technology and how your work has changed over the last three decades?
I was lucky to be teaching physics just as small computers became available to the general public and schools. I started writing programs to help me teach physics. That included a grading program, simulations of things we could not do in the lab, and data collection using sensors. We started selling our first programs on Apple II floppy disks. We quickly got involved with making and selling sensors to go with the software. Over the 42 years at the company, we have designed products for Commodore 64, MS-DOS, every version of Windows and Macintosh, TI calculators and even Palm Pilots. Now, Chromebooks, iOS and Android are a big deal. You could say we are doing pretty much the same thing we were doing in the 1980s, but with much better and cheaper hardware. (Our company is now called Vernier Science Education.)
You’ve been a loyal supporter of physics at The Ohio State University. What inspired you to give back?
We have worked very hard, but we have also been lucky to be financially successful. Neither my wife nor I came from wealthy families and we got degrees from Ohio State without any debt; in fact, I do not think I even heard of a student loan while I was in college. In those days, tuition was such that if you worked hard at a summer job and maybe had a small scholarship or a part-time job you could get by. We know things are very different now, but we also know how important a college degree is.
Steven Richardson MS ’81, PhD ’83
Silver Spring, Maryland
When Steven Richardson transferred from MIT to Ohio State in 1978 with his graduate research advisor, Bruce Patton, he really had no idea what to expect as a new graduate student living and working in Columbus, Ohio. Having been born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Richardson soon realized that living in the Midwest would be quite a new experience for him. As it turned out, he found both the faculty members and fellow graduate students in the Department of Physics at Ohio State to be very welcoming and supportive in helping him adjust to his new life. While working six days a week in his cubicle office in the old Smith Lab on West 18th Avenue learning and doing physics, Richardson was able to decompress at least one day on the weekend at one of his favorite clubs and bars in Columbus (alas, they have all since closed) or at R&B and smooth jazz concerts by many renowned artists at the Ohio Theatre, Mershon Auditorium and the Veterans Memorial Auditorium (fortunately, they have not closed). He notes that, “In addition to the Department of Physics, I was very fortunate to have the support and guidance of the late Dr. Frank Hale, the former Vice Provost for Diversity and Inclusion and Professor Emeritus at Ohio State, and Minnie McGee, Assistant Dean of the Minority Engineering Program in the College of Engineering (now retired), for helping me stay focused and motivated to continue my work. Their support and friendship were invaluable as I was one of a handful of Black STEM graduate students on the Ohio State campus at that time.”
After Ohio State, Richardson did a postdoc at the University of California, Berkeley and then embarked on a career in industry as a senior research scientist in the Eastman Kodak Corporate Research Labs in Rochester, N.Y. During his time at Kodak, he took a sabbatical leave to run the theoretical condensed matter physics program at the National Science Foundation (NSF) in Washington, D.C. While at NSF, Richardson learned that Howard University in Washington, D.C. had been awarded a multi-million grant to start a research center in materials science. He subsequently left Kodak and NSF in 1988 and decided to remain in the D.C. area to join the faculty at Howard as a key member of this research center where he spent most of his professional career doing research in computational chemistry and computational materials science.
“While teaching and doing research at Howard University, I discovered that these two activities were quite synergistic and I tried to spend sufficient time on both. In fact, many of my teaching skills were developed and refined during my years as a graduate teaching assistant and course grader while a graduate student at Ohio State.”
During his 28-year career at Howard, he primarily taught graduate courses and mentored many Black electrical engineers who went on to pursue productive careers in industry, academia and government. In fact, his first PhD student at Howard, Shaune Allen, went on to be a senior research engineer at NASA where he worked on the James Webb Space Telescope project. Richardson was selected by his faculty colleagues and former students as the recipient of the 2013 Howard University Faculty Senate Award for Exemplary Teaching.
When asked about his career at Howard, he said, “A wise person once reminded me that talent is everywhere, opportunities are not. If the United States is going to remain competitive in STEM for the 21st century, then it needs to step up its game in identifying and mentoring a diverse cadre of future students, and our historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) can play an important role in that mission.”
Richardson is very happy to learn of the efforts in the physics department to actively recruit and mentor underrepresented and minority students both in physics and STEM in general. He feels that, “although it is unfortunate that some elements of today’s political climate are hell bent in attacking and restricting the nation’s efforts in DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), such efforts are essential if we are going to maintain our technological preeminence in STEM in the 21st century.” Were it not for the specific efforts of IBM and Xerox to recruit and support Black physics graduate students back in the day, Richardson says that “his STEM career at Ohio State may never have started.”
A common theme of his research is using supercomputers to compute the total energies of important molecules and materials from the laws of quantum mechanics. This ranged from working with IBM punch cards on the IBM System/360 Model 91, the supercomputer of the late 1960s, to modern supercomputers housed at Berkeley and the University of Texas at Austin that are now easily accessed through the internet. He has been a visiting scientist at the Center for Computational Materials Science of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. (1997-2014), a featured participant for the 2012 series The HistoryMakers: Science Makers, a co-principal investigator in the NSF Science and Technology Center for Integrated Quantum Materials (2013-2025), and he was the 2016-2017 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Visiting Professor of Chemistry at MIT. Richardson was also a visiting professor at Bradley University, Emory University, Iowa State University and the University of Lisbon and he has lectured extensively on his research throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, Mexico and South Africa. He is currently a Faculty Associate in Applied Physics in the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University and he is a 2022-2024 Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer. In 2021, Richardson was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Although Richardson is a Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering at Howard University and he is no longer teaching students, he and his collaborators are now performing density-functional theory calculations on impurity-vacancy centers in diamond for possible applications in quantum computers and quantum networks. His advice for students studying physics today is to appreciate the analytical skills a physics education can provide. Richardson notes that his nephew Jared ('11 physics) is now a senior talent manager at Novelis, the world’s largest recycler of aluminum based in Atlanta. He also suggests that physics students “take as many computer programming and mathematics courses as possible as these skills are going to be invaluable for future work in STEM and its applications. In fact, linear algebra is the gateway subject for really understanding the exciting fields of machine learning, quantum computing and artificial intelligence.”
Finally, Richardson remarks that, “At the age of 70, human biology reminds me that I have far more years behind me than I have ahead. Despite this I still intend to continue working on my science with wonderful collaborators on interesting and important problems in materials science, condensed matter physics and chemistry. A lot of folks at Ohio State and elsewhere have invested their time, energy and money in providing me opportunities and this is my way of giving back.”
