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As an associate professor at Kansas State University, Ruth Douglas Miller ’84 teaches electronics, electromagnetics, bioinstrumentation, engineering ethics, and photovoltaics. One of the most exciting aspects of the position is the chance to lead students in projects involving a solar car and solar house.
“I have advised the solar car team since spring 2000 and this year we have just begun a solar house team,” she says. “The solar house team will compete in the Solar Decathlon. Their job is to design, build, and operate a solar-powered home. In the fall of 2007, the teams will transport their solar houses to Washington, D.C., where all the competing houses form a solar village.”
The Solar Decathlon is an international collegiate competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy in partnership with its National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Student teams compete to design, build, and operate highly energy-efficient, completely solar-powered houses that incorporate building integrated photovoltaics.
Miller is energized by the dedication and spirit of her students.
“The most fun thing is interacting with bright and motivated students,” she says. “Many of them love the subject as much as I do. The solar car team members are extremely dedicated, equipped with wonderful flashes of insight, determined, and also lots of fun to be with. That energy is what drives me, and what has me now trying to guide a new team building a solar house.”
“I really want to see us do well in the solar house competition in 2007, and hope to have more opportunities to teach and do research in alternative energy in connection with both that project and the solar car,” Miller continues. “Another colleague here is very interested in sustainability and alternative energy, and there are some lines of research we’d like to pursue. This is critically important to both of us as part of professional ethics, as well as our mutual Christian faith.”
Her faith has also led Miller to serve on the executive board of the American Scientific Affiliation, an organization of Christians working in the sciences.
“On the board I see myself as a voice for good solid science, including evolutionary biology. And, in engineering, admitting that global warming is real, the environment needs our help fast, and as Christian engineers we have an ethical duty to be part of a solution to these problems humans have caused,” she says.
Electrical engineering has been Miller’s focus since college. It was her major at Lafayette, as well as her masters and Ph.D. field. After finishing her Ph.D. she went straight to teaching the subject at Kansas State University, a job she loves. Working in a university often leads her to comparisons with Lafayette.
“I am very glad for the small size of Lafayette and for the mixture of majors,” she says. “At KSU engineering students typically are in classes of over 300 in their first two years and they really have to work to experience the liberal arts side of life and classes. At Lafayette, we were few and well-mixed and I learned a great deal both from liberal arts classes and from liberal arts majors that KSU engineering students lack.”
Miller’s favorite Lafayette processors included John Greco, Thomas Reilly,and Ken Demarest.
“Ken left the same year I did and went to the University of Kansas, where he still is; we still compare notes on how to teach electromagnetics, which he taught me and which I now teach. Dr. Greco taught bytes and nybbles and made digital electronics so simple I frequently wish I’d taken at least one more class from him. Dr. Riley really knew his stuff, and when I teach electronics I hope I come at least a bit close to matching his great skill.”
She has many special memories of her college years.
“The only all-nighter I ever pulled was a Friday night just chewing the fat over at Hogg Hall after a Lafayette Christian Fellowship meeting. I loved to wander around the Hill, off campus, and knew the way to a lovely overlook over the Delaware, as well as down to the riverfront and the canal. The campus in spring, all in bloom, is a thing of beauty. And I remember an amazing early-spring snowfall that cancelled a career fair I was dreading! I think my induction into the engineering honor society, Tau Beta Pi, played an important role in my strong emphasis on engineering ethics now,” she concludes.