Government and Related Agencies:
- National Institute for Health: 2009.
- Federal Human Subjects Research Subcommittee: 2010.
- NASA Goddard Space Flight Center: 2015, 2014.
- U.S. Naval Observatory: 2016.
- Johns Hopkins Space Telescope Institute: 2016, 2015.
- Montgomery County Planning Commission: 2018, 2017.
Universities and Schools:
- University of Michigan: 2013.
- University of Oklahoma: 2013.
- University of Maryland Baltimore County: 2014.
- Montgomery College : 2014.
- Bereich Geographie, Universität Bayreuth: 2015.
- Greenmount School, Baltimore: 2015 (two presentations).
- Oberlin University: 2016.
- Pennsylvania State University: 2017.
- Walter Johnson High School, MD: 2018.
- Towson University: 2018.
- St. Paul’s School, Baltimore: 2018.
- College of William and Mary: 2018 (six presentations), 2016 (two presentations).
- Juniata College, Huntingdon PA: 2018 (two presentations).
- Frostburg State University: 2019.
Other Institutions:
- St. Augustine Lighthouse and Museum: 2013 (two presentations).
- Science Café, Rockville MD: 2015 (two presentations).
- Cosmos Club, Washington DC: 2016.
- Recovering Voices, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History: 2019.
- Mystic Seaport Museum: 2016 (three presentations).
- The Smithsonian Associates: 2016 (two presentations), 2015, 2014, 2012.
- Smithsonian Institution: 2017.
- Halau o ‘Aulani, Alexandria VA: 2017 (two presentations).
- Wells Fargo: 2018.
Testimonials:
“Doug is an impressive, relaxed public speaker, blessed with a resonant, clear voice. He’s a “chip of the old block” of his famous father, George Herman, a prominent CBS TV White House Correspondent and moderator of Face the Nation. I heard his fascinating, colorful depiction of Polynesian navigation presented at the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C. His mix of presentation and copy is compelling, and he is both articulate and very interesting. During his experience in the nation’s capital as Senior Geographer at the prestigious Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Doug received a Secretary’s Distinguished Scholar award for his paper on traditional knowledge and what it teaches about addressing today’s contemporary issues such as climate change. He has many interests in the cultural arena, and is a fascinating educator/journalist skilled in public affairs. I’m very proud to recommend Doug Herman.”
—Sid Davis, Vice President and
Washington Bureau Chief for NBC News (retired)
“In 2016, I heard Dr. Herman speak on “The Ancient Art of Oceanic Exploration and Land Finding,” a lecture so vivid I recall it clearly today. Since then I’ve watched several of his talks on YouTube. Each one was superb. In every case, he shaped a wide and complex body of knowledge into a lucid form that made highly specialized information appealing to a general audience.
“This is not an easy task, as I know from twenty years as an editor at Time-Life Books. All the company’s many non-fiction series required staffs of consultants, researchers, designers, writers and editors to bring order and color to the subjects at hand.
“Dr. Herman appears to have done this synthesizing work alone, relying on decades of experience and expertise. In the “Oceanic Navigation” lecture, for instance, he examined the thousand-year history of Polynesia’s exploration and settling of far-flung Pacific islands. The story involved history, material and spiritual culture, linguistics and the remarkable Stone Age skills required to build canoes that could navigate thousands of miles of ocean. And, of course, it also demanded understanding of how these voyagers, lacking even such early devices as astrolabes, found their way across the waters, using stars, swells, waves, birds and clouds.
“It was all there, delivered in an affable, informal style, with interesting photographs, maps and charts. There was just the right number of stories and anecdotes. There were tales of his own adventures building and sailing a replica of the Polynesian canoe. There was even a demonstration of a Hawaiian canoe chant.
“Dr. Herman’s lively exploration of Pacific cultures in this and other talks is absorbing in itself, but he has a larger purpose. He uses early peoples’ way of being in the natural world—how they saw it, how they worked within it—to suggest approaches we might use in saving our endangered planet. There can hardly be a richer, more telling way to address this critical subject.”
Ellen Phillips, Former European Editor,
Time-Life Books, Inc.
“Dr. RDK Herman is a pioneer of Indigenous geographies and dynamic educator whose work I heartily admire. During his virtual visit to Oberlin College, he showed us how to turn the classroom into a site to engage with the work of decolonizing knowledge production through the partnership with Indigenous communities. Many of my students shared with me how they felt empowered after their conversations with Dr. Herman, and I couldn’t agree more with them. Dr. Herman’s work demonstrates a socio-environmental dynamic that reinforces Indigenous sovereignty and enables cultural survival. Simultaneously, he explores many connections between marginalized societies and nature, and promotes humanistic solutions to environmental challenges through community-partnered collaboration. He strives to foster a space where a diversity of perspectives, ideas, and cultures are collectively explored through active reciprocity with the Indigenous communities within the Pacific and beyond.”
—Dr. Chie Sakakibara,
Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies,
Oberlin College
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