Prior to joining Argonne in 2023, Herman was a professor of Chemical Engineering at Oregon State University. Between 2019 and 2022, He also served as the Head of the School of Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering and the James and Shirley Kuse Chair in Chemical Engineering. He held several other positions at the university since he first joined its ranks in 2009, including Director of the National Science Foundation’s National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure. Prior to this, Herman served as senior scientist at Sharp Laboratories of America, R&D engineer at the Hewlett-Packard Company, and senior research scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). He also completed postdoctoral fellowships at both PNNL and the Naval Research Laboratory.

Herman’s research interests include surface science, heterogeneous catalysis, thin film growth, device physics, and nanotechnology. His research covers amorphous and high entropy alloys, extreme ultraviolet photoresists, printed and flexible oxide-based thin film transistors, memristors, microfluidic nanomaterials synthesis, photochemistry, and photovoltaics. He was instrumental in the development of oxide-based semiconductors for thin-film transistor applications.

Herman has a PhD in physical chemistry from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. He has published more than 130 peer-reviewed scientific publications, has given numerous invited seminars and lectures, and holds 68 patents. Google scholar reports over 30,000 citations of his publications and patents.