Robert Stewart Hyer (October 18, 1860 – May 29, 1929) was an educator and researcher in Texas noted for experimenting with early X-ray and telegraphy equipment.

[2] He attended elementary school in Atlanta before receiving a bachelor's and master's degree at Emory College in 1881 and 1882 where he was a Member of the Chi Phi fraternity.

[2] Hyer followed fellow Emory graduates Claude C. Cody and Morgan Callaway, Jr. to Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, where he served as a physics professor from 1882 to 1911.

When Southwestern rejected relocation, Hyer resigned as president in 1911 and moved to Dallas to work toward establishing a new university.

[4] Before his death, Hyer applied for a patent for the "resistograph" he invented to locate oil in West Texas and was elected a member of the Phi Beta Kappa chapter at Emory University in recognition of his scientific achievements.