Beaverton, Oregon
Jax Richards was born and raised in Oregon and graduated from Southridge High School in Beaverton with an International Baccalaureate Diploma in 2019. He is in his fourth and final year as an undergraduate student at the Oregon State Honors College, earning five degrees in Economics, Public Policy, Political Science, Speech Communication and Sustainability Sciences. Additionally, Mr. Richards has engaged in university research for his thesis and through the Honors College Center for the Humanities internship program. During his time at OSU, Mr. Richards has been continuously active within the university and the greater Oregon community. He’s a previous OSU Equity-Centered Community Design Advocacy Board member, led TEDxOregonStateU events as the head licensee and is the current Chair of OSU’s Family Resource Center Advisory Board. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mr. Richards also worked as a youth advocate at a local youth residential center and volunteered at the OSU Reser Vaccine Clinic during the vaccination rollout.
As a fourth-generation Oregonian and first-generation college student, Mr. Richards is the child of a single-mother household with a father facing incarceration and drug addiction. As a result, welfare and educational opportunities for Oregon youth are central to Mr. Richards’ regular advocacy. During his first year, Mr. Richards founded a 501(c)(3) nonprofit focused on advocating abuse survivor voices and has since continued working within this community. He’s served as a congressional intern in the U.S. House of Representatives, has worked in various positions at national and international nonprofit organizations and functioned as a legislative assistant in the Oregon Senate during the 2021 and 2023 legislative sessions.
As a trustee, Mr. Richards loves regularly engaging with everyone and knows it can be daunting to include every voice and perspective in a community as large as Oregon State. He understands that he cannot relate to many lived experiences and strives daily to ensure diverse voices are included and appropriately represented in his advocacy. Nonetheless, Mr. Richards continues championing students and marginalized communities on the local, state and national levels. Even internationally, since he was an exchange student and attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP26, in Glasgow. For his efforts, Mr. Richards was a finalist for the Harry S. Truman Scholarship, the recipient of an OSU Dean’s Award of Service Scholarship and several other accolades.
