Richter is the Paul Pigott Professor in the Physical Sciences Emeritus at Stanford University and Director Emeritus of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. He is the recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physics. Dr. Richter received his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He began his career at Stanford in 1956 as a Research Associate in the High Energy Physics Laboratory. Dr. Richter's honors and awards include the E. O. Lawrence Medal, U. S. Department of Energy, the Nobel Prize in Physics, 1976, and the Fermi Award, a Presidential award for lifetime achievement. He is an elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences; the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society; Fellow and President (1994) of the American Physical Society; and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He is the recipient of the 2007 Phillip Hauge Abelson Prize by the AAAS.

He is a member of the DOE's Nuclear Energy Advisory Board and Chairs its Fuel Cycle subcommittee; the DOE's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Advisory Committee; the Board of Directors, Litel Instruments. He is Past President of the American Physical Society and of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics;. Richter has been a member of the Secretary of Energy's Advisory Board; A dvisory Committee of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory; member of the Board of Directors, Varian Associates and Varian Medical Systems; member of the Director's Council, Scripps Institution of Oceanography; member of the International Committee for Future Accelerators; and chair of the U.S. Liaison Committee for the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics. He has over 300 publications in high energy physics, accelerators, and colliding beam systems.