Richardson worked as a laboratory researcher for the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration while studying biology. Her initial career goal was to become a clinical
neonatologist who studied ways to decrease
nosocomial infections in newborn babies. Her FDA research focus was
antimicrobial resistance. Richardson was accepted to the
Howard University College of Medicine in 2002, but declined the offer to matriculate. She completed her degree in biology, but decided to follow her passion for writing instead. Richardson began her journalism career in 2002 as a general assignment intern for the
Observer-Dispatch in
Utica,
New York, after winning a
Freedom Forum scholarship. In 2003,
Johnson Publishing Company selected her as its inaugural intern for
Jet magazine. She was promoted to assistant editor of
Jet at the end of her internship. Richardson chronicled what she described as a "once-in-a-lifetime experience" of working alongside
Jet founder,
John H. Johnson, in a personal essay titled "Farewell and Thank You to John H. Johnson", after he died in 2005. She wrote: "When Mr. Johnson died Aug. 8 at the age of 87, I was torn between feeling selfishly saddened by his departure and enormously grateful for the inroads he made in American journalism". Richardson has reported on
Capitol Hill as an assistant editor of food policy for Food Chemical News. She also has written on health, technology and culture for
O, The Oprah Magazine,
The Baltimore Sun and the
Chicago Tribune.
Academic career At 25, Richardson began her career as an educator as a faculty member of
Morgan State University. She served as coordinator of its journalism program, and launched and directed the Morgan MOJO Lab in 2010. Students enrolled in her MOJO Lab classes learned to report news using only iPod Touch devices. Morgan State University became the first and only historically black college in the country to offer mobile journalism courses. Richardson accepted a professorship at
Bowie State University in Fall 2012. She relocated the MOJO Lab to its campus. She was a
mobile media professor in the Emerging Media and Technology division in the School of Communication until 2017. After earning her doctorate, Richardson joined the journalism faculty at the
University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She holds a dual appointment in both the journalism and communication departments within the
Annenberg School. She studies
black feminist media, communication and social justice,
mobile journalism, networked journalism, race and the media, and visual communication theory. ==Lectures and media appearances==