He has a passion for teaching students about science and teaches microbiology lectures and labs for both majors and non-majors, advanced microbiology for undergraduate and graduate students, and introductory cellular and molecular biology. Dr. Richards studies the physiology and regulation of bacterial responses to stress. He studies how the bacterium Escherichia coli responds to metabolic stress caused by excessive accumulation of sugar-phosphates. He was recently awarded a three-year National Institutes of Health grant to support this work.