Jermaine Anthony Richards is a communication scholar of media industries, organizations, and institutions across the creative, cultural, and civic sectors; he examines questions of mediated difference, ethics, and value across those organizational formations. Richards is also a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow and PhD candidate at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, where he holds a dual affiliation at the School of Cinematic Arts’ Cinema and Media Studies and Interactive Media and Games divisions. His dissertation — advised by Robeson Taj Frazier (Chair), Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, Henry Guy Jenkins III, Cristina Mejia Visperas, and TreaAndrea M. Russworm — reconstructs a sedimented formation within the serious games industrial complex.

Richards holds graduate degrees from the London School of Economics and Political Science (MSc, global media; Advertising Club of New York Presidential Scholar) and the University of Southern California (MA, global communication; MA, communication; LSE–USC Global Media and Communication Research Associate Scholar). He earned his BS in communications technology (digital systems and applications engineering) and studio art (critical media arts practice) from York College, The City University of New York, as an inaugural AD Club Innovation, Advertising, and Media Scholar.

Jermaine is Senior Producer and Research Manager at USC Games' Radical Play Lab, led by TreaAndrea M. Russworm. At RPL, he directs research on UI/UX design and analysis of games, game design, and gaming technologies; develops critical educational frameworks for K–12 and undergraduate game-based learning; executive produces game productions across the BFA and MS programs; and co-leads strategic media and entertainment industry partnerships. He began his career in marketing, advertising, and branded entertainment at age thirteen on New York City's Madison Avenue, then moved into production at Wieden+Kennedy, where he led production and designed the user interface and experience for Momo Pixel's Hair Nah: A Travel Game About a Black Woman Tired of People Touching Her Hair — a computer and arcade game which emphasizes the politics of uninvited touch. Hair Nah has been exhibited at the Smithsonian, Tate Modern, and the V&A; featured in Vogue and The New York Times; cited in peer-reviewed scholarship and more than fifteen academic books; and taught at over one hundred universities, including Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Chicago, and Northwestern — for its contributions to the cultural and educational movements surrounding the CROWN Act. Richards later freelanced in London, Paris, and Tokyo.

As a policy researcher, Richards served as a New America DIGI Fellow. He led a landscape analysis on digital transformation strategy across Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar/Burma, and Viet Nam — work supported by Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. His earlier research addressed Indonesian government protests, post-humanitarian-crisis debt accumulation in Small Island Developing States, and South–South development frameworks linking Southeast Asia and CARICOM. Previously, as a DIGI Associate in public finance at the Responsible Asset Allocator Initiative (RAAI), he focused on sovereign wealth funds; RAAI mobilizes capital from the world's largest institutional investors toward responsible investing aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and its RAAI Index offers the first comprehensive analysis of how the world's largest long-term investors manage environmental, social, and cyber-governance crises.

Richards consults and writes publicly on the communication, media, advertising, and public relations industries; media, communication, and technology policy; and critical and counter-extremist games, gamification, and simulation. His public writing has appeared in Advertising Age, Opinion Pages, and Fair Observer.