Dr. Robert Hillman is an Adjunct Professor in Communication Sciences and Disorders, and was the Founder and Former Director of the Interdisciplinary PhD Program in Rehabilitation Sciences at Mass General Brigham University. He also served as Director of Research Programs at the University from 2008 - 2018.
Dr. Hillman is also currently the Co-Director and Research Director of the Center for Laryngeal Surgery and Voice Rehabilitation at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Professor of Surgery and a member of the Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology faculty at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Hillman has been awarded over 26 grants from governmental and private sources to support his research. He has had research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 1984. His research and over 150 publications have focused primarily on developing methods for improving the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of voice and airway disorders.
In the past Dr. Hillman has been actively involved in the design and review of research programs at NIH, having served on the "Expert Panel on Voice and Voice Disorders to Update the National Strategic Research Plan" for the National Institute for Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, and as a project site visitor for the National Cancer Institute, as a core member of the Motor Function and Speech Rehabilitation Study Section at the NIH Center for Scientific Review, and as a Member of the Advisory Council for the National Institute for Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. He has also served as an editorial consultant and on the editorial boards of several professional journals and has been an invited/keynote speaker at over 50 national and international meetings.
Dr. Hillman is an elected Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and is one of only a small number of speech-language pathologists in the country to be elected as an Associate Member of the American Laryngological Association and the - American Bronchoesophalogical Association - both physician organizations.
Dr. Hillman has received numerous awards for his work including the Editor’s Award from the Journal of Speech and Hearing Research of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association , Casselberry Award from the American Laryngological Association, Alumni Fellow and Distinguished Alumni Awards from the Pennsylvania State University, two Broyles-Maloney Awards from the American Bronchoesophalogical Association, Manuel Garcia Prize (2010) from the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics, Willard R. Zemlin Lecture and Award from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Special Interest Division for Speech Science, Honors of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, Certificate of Achievement from the Voice Foundation, and Kawana Lifetime Achievement Award from the Publications Board of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
- BS, Speech Pathology, Pennsylvania State University
- MS, Speech Pathology, Pennsylvania State University
- PhD, Speech Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
- Mechanisms for normal and disordered voice production
- Evaluation and development of methods for alaryngeal (laryngectomy) speech rehabilitation
- Development of objective physiologic and acoustic measures of voice and speech production
- Evaluation of methods used to treat voice disorders.