HIGHLIGHTS
THE EGYPTIAN MUMMY PROJECT
Dr. Miller obtained a $1 million grant from the National Geographic Society for the Egyptian Mummy Project and obtained a state of the art portable CT scanning machine for the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, Dr. Zahi Hawass. This machine is currently located directly behind the Cairo Museum and was used for the scientific study of the Egyptian Mummy Tutankhamen in which he appeared in an internationally televised documentary special.
DEPARTMENT CHAIR
In 2000, Dr. Miller designed and implemented a new department, the Department of Public Health Sciences and Epidemiology at the John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii which obtained national accreditation in May 2002 one year ahead of the usual 3 year period needed to start and accredit a new MPH program. During this period, he also recruited 7 new faculty members, hired one additional administrative staff, renovated 3 laboratories from complete disuse which are now used for epidemiologic infectious disease research (HIV, West Nile virus, and Dengue Fever), built a computing center (also used by JABSOM), recruited and graduated students, won extramural funding (to date: $1.47 million + $250,000 pending contract completion), enlarged the PhD graduate faculty to 21 from 9, and reopened the PhD graduate program for admission (it had been closed for more than 4 years), and started a new MPH graduate program in social and behavioral health sciences. This was accomplished without funding or resources from the School of Medicine.
EPIDEMIOLOGICAL RESEARCH
More of Dr. Miller's research
includes the first ever epidemiologic investigations of Egypt’s Zabaleen communities (an ethnic class that collects solid waste). The resulting publication resulted in the World Bank funding for improving these communities. A similar study was done in Thailand.
He has also conducted epidemiologic studies on chronic cardiovascular diseases at the NiHanSan Honolulu Heart Program in Hawaii.
REGIONAL WORK
In Vietnam, he was CoPI with Dr. R. Yanagihara on a dengue fever epidemiological proposal to PDVI for $2 million. Although the proposal was awarded, delays in processing the award by the University resulted in losing this investigation. A great deal of effort had been made to win this award including two site visits to Vietnam.
Colleagues in Hawaii, the first population based antibiotic resistance – MRSA – patterns was published in the USA. This study included all antibiotic sensitivity testing in the entire state of Hawaii over a 5 year period.