Richard is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the LSE Middle East Centre. His research is on contemporary international approaches to peacemaking, and why peace processes fail or succeed, with a particular focus on Yemen, Sudan and South Sudan, and considering Libya, Syria and other examples.

Richard specialises in work on mediation, peace processes and peacebuilding, and international approaches to conflict, development and peace, focusing on the Middle East and Africa. Since 2001 he has worked for the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Iraq, Libya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Yemen and regionally, and for the UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan and the UN political mission in Yemen. He has also worked as a mediation and negotiations advisor for the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, the EU and the UK, on peacebuilding for International Alert, and for the UNDP Independent Evaluation Office, the UN Refugee Agency and UN Women. 

He is the author of Darfur and the International Community: The Challenges of Conflict Resolution in Sudan (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, 2011/2015) and was a visiting fellow at Durham University in 2015. He has a DPhil in International Relations from the University of Oxford.