Foil A. Miller

Foil Allan Miller (January 18, 1916 – September 20, 2016) was an American chemist and philatelist best known for his work in infrared and Raman spectroscopy. He was head of the spectroscopy division of the Mellon Institute and later professor and head of the spectroscopy laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh. Among other publications, he co-authored the books Course Notes on the Interpretation of Infrared and Raman Spectra and A Philatelic Ramble Through Chemistry (1998).

Early life and education Foil Allan Miller was born on January 18, 1916, in Aurora, Illinois. He grew up in Pepin, Wisconsin.

Miller received a B.S. in chemistry from Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1937. His dissertation was The raman spectra of pyrrole and some of its deuterium derivatives.

Career Miller held a post-doctoral fellowship with Bryce Crawford at the University of Minnesota for two years, before teaching at the University of Nebraska for four years. He then joined the Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he became head of the spectroscopy Division in 1948. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship to work in Zürich from 1957 to 1958. In 1967, he became a professor and head of the spectroscopy laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh. He spent sabbaticals as a visiting professor in Japan (1977) and Brazil (1980). He retired as a chemistry professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh in 1981. With William G. Fateley, he wrote a number of papers on the determination of barriers to internal rotation, examining the far infrared. Miller published around 100 peer-reviewed publications and presented hundreds of invited talks.

He co-edited Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular Spectroscopy from 1957 to 1963. He was Secretary of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC)'s Commission on Molecular Structure and Spectroscopy from 1969 to 1975.

Personal life While a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University, Miller met and married Naomi Zeller. They had two children, Bruce A. Miller (later of Wilmette, Illinois) and Craig F. Miller (later of Seattle, Washington).

Awards and honors Member, American Chemical Society 1957, Guggenheim Fellowship 1964, Pittsburgh Spectroscopy Award, Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh 1965, Pittsburgh Award, American Chemical Society 1973, Maurice F. Hasler Award, Society of Applied Spectroscopy 2009, Distinguished Topical Philatelist Award, American Topical Association