Glenn H. Miller

Glenn H. Miller, 87, a professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of California, Santa Barbara, died on Nov. 9, 2009, in Tucson, Ariz.

Born in Pittsburgh, Miller received a B.S. degree from Geneva College, in Beaver Falls, Pa., in 1943 and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Brown University in 1948. He served in the Navy during World War II.

Miller began his career in industry, working as a chemist for Tennessee Eastman, in Oak Ridge, Tenn., the butadiene division of Koppers, in Kobuta, Pa., and Beacon Laboratories, in Beacon, N.Y. Then in 1949, Miller joined the chemistry department at UC Santa Barbara, becoming its chairman in 1960.

During sabbaticals, Miller conducted research at the National Research Council of Canada in 1956 and at the Royal Military College, in Kingston, Ontario in 1962.

Miller served as a Fulbright-Hays lecturer at the University of Malaya, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from 1967 to 1968 and at the University of Liberia, in Monrovia, in the 1970s. He administered the University of California’s Education Abroad Program from 1984 to 1987 at the University of Nairobi, in Kenya, before retiring in 1988.

A physical chemist, Miller focused his research on popcorn polymerization. He authored three general chemistry textbooks and published numerous articles in the Journal of Physical Chemistry. He was a member of Sigma Xi and an emeritus member of ACS, joining in 1944.

Miller collected stamps, coins, cacti, and minerals. From his backyard in Goleta, Calif., he excavated a baleen whale fossil dating from the Oligocene Period and donated it to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. He also donated his extensive collection of butterflies to the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera & Biodiversity at the University of Florida.

He is survived by his wife, Mary; three daughters, Laurie Landa, Marilyn, and Jeanne; and three grandchildren.