Program Director & Associate Professor of Practice, Construction Management
● Tran, M., Kreinberg, S., Specking, E., Parnell, G.S., Hernandez, B., Pohl, E., Gallarno, G., Richards, J., Buchanan, R., and Rinaudo, C. “Smart Installation Weather Warning Decision Support,”Systems 2024, Volume 12, Issue 14, January 2024. https://doi.org/10.3390/systems12010014.
● Richards, J.P., Bruhl, J., Richards, J.E., and Long, S. “Improving Mission Assurance Assessments for Resilience of Military Installations,” Natural Hazards Review, Volume 22, Issue 4, November 2021. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)NH.1527-6996.0000483.
Select papers in conference proceedings and edited books
● Buchanan, R., Richards, J., Myers, N., Rinaudo, C., Hoch, B., Bastian, H. “Applying High-Performance Computing Analytics toward Understanding and Informing the Mitigation of Weather Impacts on Installations,” Handbook of Military and Defense Operations Research. CRC Press. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1201/9781003396307.
● Richards, J., Brown, W., Gallarno, G., and Rice, T. (2023). “Revisiting Delphi – Requirements Analysis through Modifications in Subject Matter Expert Elicitation Techniques,” 2023 Southeast Symposium on Contemporary Engineering Topics, Little Rock, Arkansas, September 15, 2023.
● Richards, J. P., Buchanan, R., Rinaudo, C., Gallarno, G.E., Barnett, S., Williams, E., and Myers, N. (2022). “Integration of Weather and Traffic Data Analytics for Installation Decision Dashboard,” 2022 Southeast Symposium on Contemporary Engineering Topics, Little Rock, Arkansas, September 16, 2022.
● Richards, J. P., Callaghan, C., Elliot, K., Elliot, T., Larsen, P., Nallar, M., Richards, J. E., and Rinaudo, C. (2021). “Developing a compound threat risk framework for military systems,” American Society for Engineering Management International Annual Conference, Virtual, October 22-31, 2021.
Professional Experience
Dr. John Richards joined the faculty at Merrimack College in 2025 following three decades of service in the United States Army. His research focuses on construction management innovation and infrastructure resilience.
Prior to coming to Merrimack College, Dr. Richards served as an Operations Research Analyst at the US Army Engineer and Research Development Center (ERDC) where he was responsible for a research portfolio with projects in infrastructure resilience, construction management innovation, decision analysis, and implementation of large language models/artificial intelligence in defense applications. Previous to his role at ERDC, he completed a twenty-five year career as an active-duty Army engineer officer leading combat and construction engineering units with deployments to Kwajaleen, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He also completed assignments in both the Alaska and Detroit districts of the Corps of Engineers, taught civil engineering and engineering management courses at the United States Military Academy, and retired as a Lieutenant Colonel.
Outside his military service, Dr. Richards taught engineering management courses for the Missouri University of Science and Technology and Clarkson University and is active in several professional societies, to include the Society for American Military Engineers and leadership positions in both the American Society for Engineering Management and the American Society for Engineering Education.
