Hermann grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, where her father served as a professor of sociology and her mother taught biology and chemistry at a local high school.
She secured $2 million from the National Science Foundation to launch a summer institute in political psychology.
Her research deals with developing techniques for assessing the leadership styles of government heads from a distance and she has curated such data on over 500 leaders.
[2] Hermann was the founding editor of the journal Political Psychology between 1980 and 1982, and the Mershon International Studies Review from 1993 to 1998.
Hermann served as the founding editor of the same journal between 2003 and 2007, by which time it was known by the name International Studies Review.