R.J. Dwayne Miller, a University Professor in the Departments of Chemistry and Physics in the Faculty of Arts & Science, has been named a Fellow of the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of sciences and the oldest science academy in continuous existence.
Miller and the other new fellows were selected for their substantial contribution to the advancement of science and, according to the Royal Society, because they have “pushed forward the boundaries of their respective fields and had a beneficial influence on the world beyond.” The new fellows and foreign members join the ranks of Stephen Hawking, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Lise Meitner, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and Dorothy Hodgkin.
Miller is being recognized for his pioneering work on ultrabright electron sources that made it possible to capture atomic motions at the fundamental space-time limit to imaging chemistry — one of the grand challenges in chemistry. This work and his seminal contributions to nonlinear spectroscopy have directly revealed the key reaction modes directing chemistry and the associated enormous reduction in dimensionality that occurs during the barrier crossings involved in chemical transformations. His work has exposed the spatially correlated degrees of freedom directing chemical processes that has enabled chemistry to be scaled in complexity from a few atom molecules to biological systems.
“Being elected to the Royal Society is the equivalent of being selected to a Walk of Fame for scientists,” says Miller. “It is an incredible honour to be considered, never mind being included in this singular group of individuals who have given us a new set of glasses with which to see the world more clearly.”