Dr. Richardson is the Associate Chair for Research and a professor in the University of Michigan Medical School Department of Family Medicine. Dr. Richardson received an undergraduate degree from MIT in Mathematics, and she received her medical degree from Harvard. She completed her residency in Family Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia and completed a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Fellowship at the University of Michigan in 2003.

Dr. Richardson is a health services research with expertise in physical activity measurement using remote sensors and with eHealth intervention design and testing.  She is a former Director of the VA Diabetes Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (VA DM QUERI), charged with coordinating implementation research related to diabetes and diabetes prevention for the VA nationally.  She is currently a co-Director of the Clinical Scholars Program at Michigan. In addition, she is on the Institute Leadership Team for the Institute for Health Policy and Innovation at UMich where she chairs the education committee, and she is an Associate Editor of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.