Richard Schodde was foundation Curator/Director of the Australian National Wildlife Collection, CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) Division of Wildlife and Ecology (1970-1998). He later became a Research Fellow there. From around 1970 to 2000 Schodde led the bird and vegetation surveys that helped set up Kakadu National Park and produced the biogeographical grounds in birds that contributed significantly to the designation of the wet tropics of northeast Queensland as Australia's first World Heritage Area. Overall the surveys under his direction lead to the collection of almost 50,000 specimens, plus 15,000 samples of cryo-frozen tissue for molecular study. Schodde built it into the most comprehensive and research-effective collection of Australian birds in the world.

He also published over 150 papers, books and booklets covering the systematics, biogeography and evolutionary history of Australasian birds, generating the theory of a rainforest (and possibly Gondwanan) origin for Australia's modern bird fauna and advancing the biodiversity unit concept for the conservation of Australia's birdlife. Richard Schodde was a Corresponding Fellow of the American Ornithologists' Union; chairman of the Standing Committee on Ornithological Nomenclature, International Ornithological Committee; convener of symposia on the origin and evolutionary radiations of Australasian birds at International Ornithological Congresses of 1974 and 1990 and was twice awarded the Whitley Medal: for Nocturnal Birds of Australia (1981, with I. Mason) and The Fairy Wrens (1982).