RADFORD -- Radford University professor Rhett Herman, an astrophysicist and relativity theorist, will address graduates, families and guests at the university’s winter commencement exercises Saturday, Dec. 15 at 10 a.m. in the Dedmon Center arena.

Dr. Herman (right), 2007 recipient of the Donald N. Dedmon Distinguished Teaching Professor Award, RU’s highest teaching honor, will join President Penelope W. Kyle as she presides over the ceremony. Kyle will confer 71 master’s degrees and 459 bachelor’s degrees.

“Dr. Herman is one of RU’s most popular and respected faculty members,” said Kyle. “He is known for getting his physics students involved in substantive research, such as testing new depth measurement tools on the polar ice cap in Alaska. He is also known for opening university doors to the local community and for substantial contributions to his professional field.”

The outstanding professor and scholar says he is motivated by the ultimate “why.” He says that physics explains how and why the universe works the way it does. “I have to know how things work and why things happen.”

Dr. Herman’s MacGyver-like ability to create interesting physics laboratory projects out of ordinary materials, such as bicycle wheels, PVC pipe and Gorilla tape, makes him a favorite among RU students. In 2003 he won the Preston Durrill Academic Advising Award from the Omicron Delta Kappa National Leadership Honor Society, and he received the 1999-2000 College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Teaching Award.

Dr. Herman began teaching at RU in 1996 and since 1999 has been the director of the university’s Planetarium, which offers shows for the campus and surrounding communities. He facilitates a Science Day program for hundreds of elementary and middle school students in Southwest Virginia. The children explore science through tours of the RU Greenhouse, Planetarium and Museum of the Earth Sciences and through educational and entertaining demonstrations by RU faculty and students.

Dr. Herman has served as an astrophysics contributor to Scientific American magazine and has published or presented more than 50 works in the areas of astrophysics, geophysics, quantum physics and effective teaching strategies in the sciences. In 1999 and 2007 he won the Frank R. Haig Prize for the best paper from a four-year college from the Chesapeake Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers.

To learn more about RU’s winter commencement, visit www.radford.edu