Rate My Professor Chris Miller

Christopher S. Miller is an Associate Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of Colorado Denver. He received a B.A. in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2002 and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2008, with a dissertation on computational inference of protein structure and function from microbial genomes and metagenomes. From 2009 to 2012, he conducted postdoctoral research in microbial community genomics in Dr. Jillian Banfield's laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. Miller joined the University of Colorado Denver as Assistant Professor in 2012 and was promoted to Associate Professor.

Miller's research focuses on developing and applying bioinformatic and genome-enabled approaches to study the systems-level complexity of microbial communities using deep sequencing of environmental DNA and RNA. His work addresses microbial processes in environmental remediation, bioenergy production, methane cycling in wetlands, river microbiomes, and human health. He has obtained major funding including multiple DOE Joint Genome Institute Community Science Program awards (e.g., 2015, 2018), a top-ranked DOE Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory proposal (2015, $136,061 in-kind), NSF DEB 1701970 ($20,215, 2017), a U.S. Department of Energy grant of $1,049,639 (2020) for filling gaps in omics data translation to models, and a CU Presidential Initiative Grant (2020) for mechanistic understanding of microbial remediation at a Denver Superfund site. His highly cited publications include 'The database of interacting proteins: 2004 update' (Nucleic Acids Research, 2004; 2,681 citations), 'Fermentation, Hydrogen, and Sulfur Metabolism in Multiple Uncultivated Bacterial Phyla' (Science, 2012; 715 citations), 'EMIRGE: reconstruction of full-length ribosomal genes from microbial community short read sequencing data' (Genome Biology, 2011; 418 citations), and 'Methanogenesis in oxygenated soils is a substantial fraction of wetland methane emissions' (Nature Communications, 2017; 345 citations). Miller teaches courses such as General Biology I, Introduction to Biotechnology, Genomics and Bioinformatics, and Topics in Integrative and Systems Biology.