R. J. Dwayne Miller is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe th ...

and a professor at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

. His focus is in

physical chemistry Physical chemistry is the study of macroscopic and microscopic phenomena in chemical systems in terms of the principles, practices, and concepts of physics such as motion, energy, force, time, thermodynamics, quantum chemistry, statistical mecha ...

and biophysics. He is most widely known for his work in ultrafast

laser science Laser science or laser physics is a branch of optics that describes the theory and practice of lasers. Laser science is principally concerned with quantum electronics, laser construction, optical cavity design, the physics of producing a popul ...

, time-resolved spectroscopy, and the development of new

femtosecond A femtosecond is a unit of time in the International System of Units (SI) equal to 10 or of a second; that is, one quadrillionth, or one millionth of one billionth, of a second. For context, a femtosecond is to a second as a second is to about 31. ...

electron sources. His research has enabled real-time observation of atomic motions in materials during chemical processes and has shed light on the structure-function correlation that underlies biology.

Early life and education

Miller was born and raised in

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...

Manitoba Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...

. In 1978, he received a

B.Sc. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

in chemistry and

immunology Immunology is a branch of medicineImmunology for Medical Students, Roderick Nairn, Matthew Helbert, Mosby, 2007 and biology that covers the medical study of immune systems in humans, animals, plants and sapient species. In such we can see there ...

at the

University of Manitoba The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a Canadian public research university in the province of Manitoba.Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

in chemistry at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in 1983 under the supervision of

Michael D. Fayer Michael David Fayer (born September 12, 1947) is an American chemical physicist. He is the David Mulvane Ehrsam and Edward Curtis Franklin Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University. Education and academic career He attended the University of C ...

. His thesis work focused on energy transport in model systems of

photosynthesis Photosynthesis is a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy that, through cellular respiration, can later be released to fuel the organism's activities. Some of this chemical energy is stored i ...

and is titled ''Part I, Electronic excited state transport and trapping in disordered systems; Part II, Laser induced ultrasonics''.

Academic career

Following graduation, Miller gained a faculty position at the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The University of Roc ...

and immediately took a 12-month leave to do postdoctoral research in solid state physics as a

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

science fellow at the Laboratoire de Spectrometrie Physique (renamed to Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire de Physique in 2011) at the

Université Joseph Fourier Joseph Fourier University (UJF, french: Université Joseph Fourier, also known as Grenoble I) was a French university situated in the city of Grenoble and focused on the fields of sciences, technologies and health. It is now part of the Universit ...

in Grenoble,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

under the direction of Hans Peter Trommsdorff and Robert Romenstain. He returned to University of Rochester in 1984 as an assistant professor of chemistry. He was promoted to

associate professor Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''. Overview In the ''North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is a ...

in 1988 and then full

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

of chemistry and

optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultraviole ...

in 1992. In 1995, he moved back to

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

and relocated his research group to the departments of chemistry and physics at the University of Toronto. In 2006, he was appointed as a University Professor and later as a Distinguished Faculty Research Chair. From 2010-2014, R. J. D. Miller was the dirctor of the Max Planck Group, Centre for Free Electron Laser Science/DESY, University of Hamburg. From 2014-2020, he was the co-founding director of Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. In 2023, he was inducted as a fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

and has been a fellow of

Royal Society of Canada The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; french: Société royale du Canada, SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bil ...

and the

Royal Society of Chemistry The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a learned society (professional association) in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemistry, chemical sciences". It was formed in 1980 from the amalgamation of the Chemical Society, the Ro ...

since 1999 and 2016, respectively. He is also a member of the Chemical Institute of Canada, Canadian Association of Physicists,

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

, and Optical Society of America.

Science outreach

Beyond his scientific work, Miller is dedicated to the promotion of science education through outreach to school children. He founded and is a board member of

Science Rendezvous Science Rendezvous is the largest science festival in Canada; its inaugural event happened across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) on Saturday, May 10, 2008 with the support from the University of Toronto, Ryerson University (now Toronto Metrop ...

, an annual

science festival A science festival is a festival that showcases science and technology with the same freshness and flair that would be expected from an arts or music festival and primarily targets the general public. These public engagement events can be varied, ...

that aims to expose general public to science and technology.

Bibliography

Selected papers

* Duan HG, Jha A, Chen L, Tiwari V, Cogdell RJ, Ashraf K, Prokhorenko VI, Thorwart M, Miller RJD. ''Quantum coherent energy transport in the Fenna-Matthews-Olson complex at low temperature.'' PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 119 (49) :e2212630119 , 2022. https://doi.org/10.1063/4.0000159 * Zhipeng Huang; Meghanad Kayanattil; Stuart A. Hayes; R. J. Dwayne Miller. ''Picosecond infrared laser driven sample delivery for simultaneous liquid-phase and gas-phase electron diffraction studies.'' STRUCTURAL DYNAMICS, 9 :054301 , 2022. https://doi.org/10.1063/4.0000159 * Gourab Chatterjee, Ajay Jha, Alejandro Blanco-Gonzalez, Vandana Tiwari, Madushanka Manathunga, Hong-Guang Duan, Friedjof Tellkamp, Valentyn I. Prokhorenko, Nicolas Ferré, Jyotishman Dasgupta, Massimo Olivucci and R. J. Dwayne Miller. ''Torsionally broken symmetry assists infrared excitation of biomimetic charge-coupled nuclear motions in the electronic ground state.'' CHEMICAL SCIENCE, 13 :9392-9400 , 2022. https://doi.org/10.1039/D2SC02133A * Chiwon Lee, Alexander Marx, Günther H. Kassier & R. J. Dwayne Miller. ''Disentangling surface atomic motions from surface field effects in ultrafast low-energy electron diffraction.'' COMMUNICATIONS MATERIALS, 3 (10) , 2022. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43246-022-00231-9 * Zhang, M., Zhang, S., Xiong, Y., Zhang, H., Ischenko, A., Vendrell, O., Dong, X., Mu, X., Centurion, M., Xu, H., Miller, RJD., Li, Z.. ''Quantum state tomography of molecules by ultrafast diffraction.'' NATURE COMMUNICATIONS, 12 :5441 , 2021. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25770-6 * P. Mehrabi, R. Bücker, G. Bourenkov, H.M. Ginn, D. von Stetten, H.M. Müller-Werkmeister, A. Kuo, T. Morizumi, B.T. Eger, W.-L. Ou, S. Oghbaey, A. Sarracini, J.E. Besaw, O. Pare´-Labrosse, S. Meier11, H. Schikora, F. Tellkamp, A. Marx, D.A. Sherrell, D. Ax. ''Serial femtosecond and serial synchrotron crystallography can yield data of equivalent quality: A systematic comparison.'' SCIENCE ADVANCES, 7 (12) :eabf1380 , 2021. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abf1380 * Michiel de Kock, Sana Azim, Gunther Kassier, and R. J. Dwayne Miller. ''Determining the radial distribution function of water using electron scattering: A key to solution phase chemistry.'' THE JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL PHYSICS, 153 :194504 , 2020. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0024127 * Hong-Guang Duan, Ajay Jha, Xin Li4, Vandana Tiwari, Hanyang Ye, Pabitra K. Nayak, Xiao-Lei Zhu4, Zheng Li, Todd J. Martinez, Michael Thorwart, R. J. Dwayne Miller. ''Intermolecular vibrations mediate ultrafast singlet fission.'' SCIENCE ADVANCES, 6 (38) :eabb0052 , 2020. https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/38/eabb0052 * Cheng, S., Chatterjee, G., Tellkamp, F., Lang, T., Ruehl, A., Hartl, I., Miller, R.J.D.. ''Compact Ho:YLF-pumped ZnGeP2-based optical parametric amplifiers tunable in the molecular fingerprint regime.'' OPTICS LETTERS, 45 (8) :2255–2258 , 2020. https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.389535

Books

References

External links

Miller group at the University of Toronto

Miller group (former) at MPI for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter in Hamburg

Science Rendezvous
{{DEFAULTSORT:Miller, R. J. Dwayne 1956 births 20th-century Canadian scientists 21st-century Canadian scientists Canadian physical chemists Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Fellows of the Royal Society Living people People from Winnipeg Scientists from Manitoba Stanford University alumni Spectroscopists Sloan Research Fellows University of Manitoba alumni University of Rochester faculty Academic staff of the University of Toronto Chemical physicists Condensed matter physicists Max Planck Institute directors