Professor Richardson specializes in histories of non-elite groups in the Middle East. She is the author of two monographs: Difference and Disability in the Medieval Islamic World (2012) and Roma in the Medieval Islamic World: Literacy, Culture, and Migration (2022). This last one was awarded the Dan David Prize, the largest history prize in the world, the Monica H. Green Prize for Distinguished Medieval Research from the Medieval Academy of America, and Honorable Mention for the Middle East Medievalists Book Prize. She also co-edited the Notebook of Kamāl al-Dīn the Weaver in 2021. She is currently writing a book on free and unfree South Asian and East African agricultural laborers in early Islamic Iraq. Her work has been supported by the National Endowment of the Humanities, the Marie Curie Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the City University of New York.