The Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science was established on the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
, campus in 1955 after
Adolph C. Miller
Adolph Caspar Miller (January 7, 1866 - February 11, 1953) was an American economist who served as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 1914 to 1936. Miller was a notable benefactor of the University of California, Berkeley, of w ...
and his wife, Mary Sprague Miller, made a donation to the university. It was their wish that the donation be used to establish an institute "dedicated to the encouragement of creative thought and conduct of pure science".
The Miller Institute sponsors
Miller Research Professors
The Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science was established on the University of California, Berkeley, campus in 1955 after Adolph C. Miller and his wife, Mary Sprague Miller, made a donation to the university. It was their wish that the d ...
,
Visiting Miller Professors and
Miller Research Fellows. The first appointments of Miller Professors were made in January 1957. In 2008 the institute created the Miller Senior Fellow program. This program is aimed differently, but is still within the institute's general purpose of supporting excellence in science at Berkeley. The Senior Fellow advances that goal by providing selected faculty with significant discretionary research funds as recognition of distinction in scientific research. The first five-year award went to Professor
Randy Schekman
Randy Wayne Schekman (born December 30, 1948) is an American cell biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, former editor-in-chief of ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'' and former editor of ''Annual Review of Cell and ...
, illustrating the high standard of the Senior Fellows. The 2010 Miller Senior Fellow,
Saul Perlmutter, was awarded the