David Hewitt Miller was born in Russell, Kansas in 1918. He received his bachelor of arts
from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1939. From 1939 to 1940, he was Research
Fellow in Geography and Climatology at UCLA; from 1941-1943, Junior Meteorologist and
Assistant Meteorologist with the United States Army Corp of Engineers, San Francisco and
Salt Lake City District Offices; in 1943, Senior Instructor in Meteorology and Geography at
the Air Transport Command School in Kansas City, Missouri; and from 1943-1944, Senior
Forecaster, Western Division of Transcontinental & Western Air, Inc. in Burbank,
California. In 1944, Miller received his master of arts degree from UCLA.
From 1944-1946, he worked in the Research and Development Branch of the Office of the
Quartermaster General in Washington, D.C. as a geographer, meteorologist, and climatologist.
From 1946-1950, Miller was Assistant Chief at the Processing and Analysis Unit of the
Cooperative Snow Investigations, Corps of Engineers and Weather Bureau. From 1950 to 1952,
he worked as Assistant Director of the Snow Investigations, also with the Corps of
Engineers. From 1952 to 1953, Miller was a research fellow of the National Science
Foundation at the University of California-Los Angeles. While serving in these professional
capacities, Miller attended the graduate program in geography at the University of
California-Los Angeles. He earned his Ph.D. in 1953.
Miller has published extensively on a wide variety of topics within the geosciences. In
1955, the University of California Press published his dissertation, Snow Cover and Climate in the Sierra Nevada, California. Other monographs include
A Survey Course: The Energy and Mass Budget at the Surface of the
Earth (1968), Water at the Surface of the Earth: An
Introduction to Ecosystem Hydrodynamics (1977), and Energy
at the Surface of the Earth: An Introduction to the Energetics of Ecosystems
(1981).
Miller taught seminars and courses in hydrology, physical geography, climatology, and
meteorology at the University of Georgia (1958), the University of California (1961), the
University of Wisconsin-Madison (1962), the University of Hawaii (1970), and the University
of Newcastle, Australia (1966, 1972, 1979). His full-time academic career began in 1964 with
an appointment as professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee,
Department of Geography (now the Department of Geosciences). He served on numerous
professional committees and boards including those of the American Meteorological Society,
the Association of American Geographers, the International Geographical Union, and the
American Geophysical Union.
Miller received numerous honorary awards including membership in Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma
XI, fellowships from the National Science Foundation, a National Academy of Sciences
exchange scientist award, two Fulbright fellowships, and an honorary degree from the
University of Newcastle, Australia. Miller died in 2006.
