This award recognizes exceptional creativity by honoring faculty who propose highly innovative approaches to major contemporary challenges in the earth, energy, and material sciences. The award recipient will receive $50,000 from the E. Willard and Ruby S. Miller Faculty Fellowship Fund and a recognition memento at the Wilson Awards Banquet held each spring.
Focus
The purpose of the Miller Faculty Fellowship is to support faculty of exceptional creativity, who propose highly innovative approaches to major contemporary challenges in the earth, energy, and material sciences. By bringing their creativity and visionary perspectives to bear on major research questions, they may develop novel theories and applications that will propel fields forward. The funds are to be used primarily for graduate student support. The award period is five years and any unspent balance at the end of the award period will be returned to the fund for reallocation.
Nominations
Annually in September, the dean invites nominations for the E. Willard & Ruby S. Miller Faculty Fellowship from each department and institute. Reminders are sent in November.
Each department and institute may submit one nomination (submitted by the department head or director) and the nomination packet should include:
- Title page including name, rank, department affiliation
- Summary of proposed research, limited to one page and written for nonspecialists
- Narrative (three pages or less) in which the problem is defined, the need, value or significance of the work is indicated, and the research plan is broadly outlined
- Short vita, including related publications and experience
- Proposed budget including fringe benefits and tuition (travel is not permitted)
- Recent high-resolution color photograph suitable for the program in jpeg format
The nomination materials should be send to Diane Ault (emsresearch@ems.psu.edu) no later than February 15.
Eligibility
The award will be made annually to a tenure-track faculty member in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences.
Selection Procedure
Nominations are solicited from departments and institutes (typically there is a limit of one nomination per category per department or institute; see the Nomination Procedure guidance under each award). Department heads and institute directors are able to provide new nominations or request reconsideration of last year’s nominees. A selection committee, comprising the deans of the college, reviews and discusses the nominations and selects the recipient in each category.
Proposals will be evaluated by a committee consisting of the dean and the associate deans of the college using the following criteria:
- Scientific and/or technical merits
- Innovativeness of the research
- Qualifications, experience and past performance of the proposer
- Adequacy of facilities and equipment to accomplish the research
- Reasonableness of the budget
The final selection will be based on the proposal evaluation and programmatic considerations. Funds for the awardee will be available after July 1 of the year receiving.
Current Recipient
Luis Ayala
William A. Fustos Family Professor in Energy and Mineral Engineering
Past Recipients
- 2022: Manzhu Yu
- 2021: Hamid Emami-Meybodi
- 2020: Tieyuan Zhu
- 2019: Meng Wang and Alexander Klippel
- 2018: Jillian Goldfarb
- 2017: Peter Heaney
- 2016: Chiara Lo Prete
- 2015: Kirby Calvert
- 2014: Randy Vander Wal
- 2013: Joshua A. Robinson
- 2012: Klaus Keller
- 2011: Fuqing Zhang
- 2010: James H. Adair
- 2009: Alan M. MacEachren
- 2008: William H. Brune and Maureen Feineman
