Karla L. Miller

Early life and education Miller has said that she became interested in the brain as a child. Her mother had brain surgery when Miller was only twelve years old, and she became concerned that it might impact her personality. Alongside the outstanding undergraduate award she was awarded the Spyglass award for academic achievement and a Franz Hohn and J. P. Nash Scholarship. In particular, she looked to advance neuroscience through techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and diffusion weighted imaging. She developed steady-state free precession imaging methods to improve the signal-to-noise ratio and spatial resolution of functional and diffusion imaging. In addition, she created navigator echoes that could improve the signal-to-noise ratio and reduce artefacts. In 2007 Miller was appointed a research lecturer at the University of Oxford and subsequently promoted to Professor of Biomedical Engineering in 2014.

Miller's research investigates new imaging techniques for collecting and analysing MRI images. In particular, she is interested in developing techniques for understanding neural microstructure, which she achieves using a combination of MRI with light and electron microscopy. Miller developed the UK Biobank brain imaging protocols, which could help to identify new biomarkers of disease and support diagnosis and development of therapeutics. By 2025 UK Biobank aims to scan 100,000 participants. She leads equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) work for the medical sciences division at the University of Oxford. Initiatives she has led include the promotion of laboratory handbooks that outline the ethos of a good laboratory working environment.

Selected publications Nonlinear phase correction for navigated diffusion imaging Multimodal population brain imaging in the UK Biobank prospective epidemiological study A positive-negative mode of population covariation links brain connectivity, demographics and behavior

Awards and honors Miller was made a Fellow of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine in 2016.