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About

Samuel Richards is a leading astronomical instrumentation scientist whose work is shaping the next generation of multi-object spectroscopic surveys. His primary research focuses on developing innovative fibre-optic positioning systems and wavefront sensors for the world’s largest telescopes. Richards’s most impactful contribution is his leadership on the TAIPAN instrument for the UK Schmidt Telescope, a prototype for the revolutionary MANIFEST fibre positioner destined for the Giant Magellan Telescope. The foundational paper detailing TAIPAN’s “StarBugs” technology has garnered 23 citations, establishing it as a key reference in the field. He has also advanced the Hector instrument concept, a multi-integral-field spectrograph designed to perform a spatially resolved spectroscopic survey of 100,000 galaxies—a tenfold increase in capability. This work aims to answer fundamental questions about galaxy evolution, including how galaxies acquire gas and regulate star formation. Furthermore, Richards has pioneered the miniaturization of Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensors for Extremely Large Telescopes, a critical step for enabling large-scale multi-object adaptive optics. Through these contributions, Richards is directly enabling the transformative surveys that will define the future of optical astronomy.