Ronald E. Miller, an emeritus professor of regional science in the School of Arts and Sciences, died on January 26. He was 89. 

Born in Seattle, Washington, in 1934, Dr. Miller studied economics at Harvard University, where he received his BA in 1955. After a term as a Fulbright scholar at the Universities of Heidelberg and Munich in 1956, he received an MA in economics from the University of Washington in 1957 and a PhD in economics at Princeton University in 1961. His dissertation was an early application of linear programming to improve airline scheduling efficiency, which was published in book form by the MIT Press in 1963. Throughout his career, he applied mathematical models to the social sciences, especially economics. 

Dr. Miller joined the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania in 1962, one of the earliest appointments to the newly-formed regional science department, and spent his entire professional career at Penn. He became a leading researcher and educator as the department matured in the 1960s and 1970s, serving terms as department chairman and as chairman of the graduate group overseeing the graduate degree programs in the 1980s.  He retired and became a professor emeritus in 1995, but remained active in research and publishing until his death.

He was instrumental in teaching and institutional development in the field of regional science. Throughout his career, Dr. Miller was well-known as a scholar, collaborating with numerous research colleagues from all over the world, and as a consummate teacher, advising scores of PhD and master’s students. He received Penn’s Ira H. Abrams Memorial Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1988 (Almanac April 19, 1988).

Dr. Miller’s research focused on the application of mathematical methods to economics and regional science, especially in exploring extensions of input-output economic models. His early-career research on interregional feedback effects in multiregional input-output models is still widely cited today. His long and productive research career was recognized with the North American Regional Science Council’s David Boyce Award for Service to Regional Science in 1995 and its Walter Isard Award for Scholarly Achievement in 2006. Dr. Miller was elected a fellow of the North American Regional Science Association and of the International Input-Output Association.

Dr. Miller served as managing editor of the flagship journal of the field of regional science, the Journal of Regional Science, for over three decades. Throughout his career, he authored, co-authored, and co-edited many journal articles and eight books focused on mathematical applications to the social sciences, including the 1985 textbook, Input-Output Analysis: Foundations and Extensions, co-authored with long-time research colleague Peter Blair, which entered its 3rd edition in 2021 and continues to serve as the most widely-used graduate text and research desk reference in the field of input-output analysis.