Professor Robert Hermans studied medicine at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. He spent practical training periods in several hospitals in Belgium and South Africa. He was promoted cum laude to medical doctor (MD) in 1987. After his medical studies, he entered the radiology training program at the University Hospitals of Leuven, Belgium, and became certified radiologist in 1991. He was appointed staff member in the Department of Radiology at the same institution in 1992.
His main interest is head and neck radiology. In 1997, he spent a visiting fellowship in the Department of Radiology at Shands Teaching Hospital in Gainesville (University of Florida). In 1998, he obtained the degree of doctor in medical sciences (PhD) at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, with a thesis on laryngeal cancer imaging. He was appointed Assistant Professor in 1998, and Associate Professor in 2000, in the faculty of Medicine of the same university. In 2004, he was promoted to Professor. He has authored or co-authored over 150 published articles on head and neck imaging, and imaging of the tumoral micro environment, as well as several book chapters.
Professor Hermans edited Imaging of the Larynx and Head and Neck Cancer Imaging, both books published by Springer, Squamous Cell Cancer of the Neck, published by Cambridge University Press, and is associate editor of the Encyclopedia of Medical Imaging, published by NICER. He is invited at a regular basis to lecture in national and international radiology meetings.