Richardson

Nobel laureate Robert Richardson will receive an honorary degree from Duke University during its commencement exercises in May, the university has announced.

Richardson, the Floyd Newman Professor of Physics and former vice provost for research, shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in physics for the 1972 discovery of superfluidity in helium-3 atoms. He will be among six Duke honorees. The others are business and philanthropic leader James Barksdale; Nancy Brinker, founder and CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure; musician Emmylou Harris; wrongful convictions spokesperson Darryl Hunt; and journalist and author Fareed Zakaria.

Richardson's past experimental work has included using nuclear magnetic resonance to study the quantum properties of liquids and solids at extremely low temperatures.