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Jonathan Potts
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For immediate release:
August 21, 2006

Carnegie Mellon Names John Miller Social and Decision Sciences Head

PITTSBURGH—Carnegie Mellon University has named John H. Miller, professor of economics and decision sciences, head of the Department of Social and Decision Sciences (SDS). Miller has been acting head of SDS since 2002, a duty he has shared with Paul Fischbeck, professor of social and decision sciences and engineering and public policy.

Miller's research focuses on understanding complex adaptive social systems, which capture pervasive and important phenomena in biological, chemical, environmental, economic, organizational and political systems. He is authoring a book on complex adaptive social systems that will be published in the spring by Princeton University Press. He has also applied experimental approaches to understanding human cooperation and altruism. Miller is a research professor at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico.

Miller is among the university's most creative educators. Over the past 10 years, he has pioneered the use of interactive, real-world experiments to teach basic economics, a practice that breaks with the long tradition of lecture-based economics courses. He has developed an online version of his introductory economics course that is part of Carnegie Mellon's Open Learning Initiative, a series of Web-based college courses that are informed by research into how people think and learn. Miller has co-authored a textbook, and in 1995 he received the Elliott Dunlap Smith Award for Teaching and Educational Service, which is given annually by the College of Humanities and Social Sciences to honor excellent undergraduate teaching.

"John Miller is a gifted and innovative educator. His research on complex adaptive social systems is widely known and has helped to make SDS one of the most innovative departments on campus," said John Lehoczky, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. "His broad research interests make him an ideal leader for this outstanding department.

"I am grateful for the leadership that both he and Paul Fischbeck have so ably provided. It has been an important ingredient in the department's excellent national reputation," Lehoczky added.

Miller earned bachelor's degrees in economics and finance from the University of Colorado, and master's and doctor's degrees in economics from the University of Michigan. He has been a faculty member at Carnegie Mellon since 1990.

"I'm delighted to be part of such a wonderful department. The department's research and teaching programs continue to define the frontiers of the social sciences. The department is well positioned to take advantage of a variety of new opportunities that will allow us to continue to advance Carnegie Mellon's position as a leader in the social sciences," Miller said.