At a ceremony at the Nittany Lion Inn last week, former Penn State cross country member Robert E. Hillman was honored with The 2008 Alumni Fellow Award as one of the foremost clinical voice scientists in the world.
Robert was co-captain of Penn State's 1974 cross country team. He was a member of the Penn State four-mile relay team and competed as one of the top distance runners in both indoor and outdoor track.
At Penn State, Hillman was the recipient of the 1974 Ernest B. McCoy Award, presented annually to the Penn State senior man and woman "who have combined successful athletic participation with academic excellence." He received his graduate degree from Penn State in 1975 in Health and Human Development as a speech pathology major. Hillman is a life member of the Penn State Alumni Association.
Currently, Robert is co-director and research director of the Center for Laryngeal Surgery and Voice Rehabilitation at Massachusetts General Hospital. At Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology he is an associate professor of surgery and health sciences and technology. He is also helping to lead a large, multi-institutional research effort to develop bio-implants that will restore voice and speech to patients whose vocal chords are damaged by trauma or disease.
Also an author, Hillman, who has written 80 publications, has been awarded more than 24 research grants from governmental and private sources. Hillman appeared in Newsweek magazine and on the National Geographic Channel for his research and technology that substitutes for missing vocal chords.