Robert F. Herrick, MS, ScD, CIH

Robert Herrick's educational background includes a BA degree in chemistry from the College of Wooster, an MS in Environmental Health Science from the University of Michigan, and a Doctor of Science in Industrial Hygiene from the Harvard School of Public Health. He is certified in the comprehensive practice of industrial hygiene. His research interests are centered on the assessment of exposure as a cause of occupational and environmental disease. He has conducted research on the development of methods to measure the biologically active characteristics of reactive aerosols, and on studies of work processes in the construction and foundry industries to develop task-based models to identify and control the primary sources of worker exposures.

Dr. Herrick is Past Chair of the American Conference of Governmental Hygienists (ACGIH), and Past President of the International Occupational Hygiene Association. He is active in the Association’s mentor program which facilitates training for industrial hygienists in industrializing countries. Prior to joining the faculty at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Dr. Herrick spent 17 years at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) where he conducted occupational health research.

Dr. Herrick has worked extensively on the problems of providing health and safety information and services to small business. While at NIOSH, he was coordinator of the small business initiative, which attempted to coordinate NIOSH’s activities including health hazard evaluations and control technology studies in small businesses. He was the founder, and past-chair of the ACGIH small business committee, of which he remains a member. He organized a Roundtable presented at the 1994 AIHCE, titled Industrial Hygiene and Small Business: Reaching the Underserved.