Richard Miller

Richard Miller is Jerome C. Hunsaker Visiting Professor or Aerospace Systems at MIT, and Professor of Mechanical Engineering and President Emeritus at Olin College of Engineering where he served for 21 years as the first president. As Olin’s first employee, he led the development of all aspects of the academic, administrative, student life, financial, and physical facilities of the College.  Previously, he served as Dean of Engineering at the University of Iowa and Associate Dean of Engineering at the University of Southern California.  He has contributed internationally to innovation in higher education, and led efforts in the US at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and National Science Foundation to advance engineering research and education.  One of the three founders of the NAE Grand Challenge Scholars Program, he has served as an advisor to the engineering schools at Harvard, Stanford, the US Military Academy at West Point, and others.  With a background in applied mechanics, he worked for 15 years as a senior consultant at Astro Aerospace Corporation on the design a very large deployable space structures (Heliogyro, SOLARES, others).  With joint appointments in Civil Engineering, he has also contributed to research on novel approaches to protecting buildings from strong ground motion during earthquakes.