About Chancellor Richard Herman
Science and Technology Biography
Dr. Richard Herman is a nationally-respected academic leader who strives for excellence in education through scholarship, collaboration, diversity of thought and innovative exploration.
As Chancellor, Herman leads a campus of more than 42,000 students and nearly 3,000 faculty members. In four decades as a professor and administrator at four universities, he has led national discussions of science policy, consistently stressing the need to advance the study and application of the sciences in a rapidly changing global community.
At Illinois, Herman leads and shapes the development and direction of large-scale scientific institutions and projects. This includes Urbana's National Center for Supercomputing Applications which has played major roles in National Science Foundation initiatives including the TeraScale project. Herman was instrumental in the formation of the Institute for Genomic Biology at Illinois, now a leader in advancing life science research and stimulating bio-economic development in the state of Illinois. Herman recognizes that U.S. competitiveness relies on constant advancements in science and technology.
Herman is a mathematician with a focus on mathematical physics and operator algebras. He graduated cum laude from the Stevens Institute of Technology in 1963, and received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Maryland in 1967. He served on the faculties of the University of California at Los Angeles, Pennsylvania State University, and the University of Maryland before coming to the flagship Illinois campus as provost in 1998. He was appointed chancellor in 2005.
Herman serves on several panels that address the nation's critical need to draw more teachers and students into the STEM disciplines: science, technology, engineering and math. He is chair of the Science and Mathematics Teacher Imperative, sponsored by the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges. The project seeks to expand the U.S. corps of math and science teachers.
In February, 2006, President Bush named Herman to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), advising President Bush on the state of U.S. investments and future directions. In 2008, Herman was elected to the prestigious American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
As a member of the Council on Competitiveness, he worked on the final report of the National Innovation Initiative, Innovate America: Thriving in a World of Challenge and Change. He is now engaged in two endeavors with the council: as a steering committee member for the Energy, Innovation and Sustainability Initiative, and co-chair of the High-Performance Computer Initiative.
Herman has played a major role with the National Science Foundation, serving six years as chair of the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics and four years (two as chair) on the Advisory Committee for the Directorate of Mathematical and Physical Sciences. Herman served as chair of the Council of Presidents of the Universities Research Association Inc., and is a member of the Business-Higher Education Forum. From 2004 to 2006, he served as a member of the Observatories Council, one of the management councils of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc. He has been a visiting faculty member and fellow at the University of Marseilles and Princeton University.
Support for Herman's scholarly research in mathematics has been supported by the National Science Foundation and NATO. Other support came under the National Defense Education Act. The recipient of an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation fellowship, he is a member of Tau Beta Pi, the engineering research society, and Sigma Xi, the scientific research society.