Faculty Directory
Academics at Fort Lewis College

About Dr. Kenny Miller

Kenny Miller joined the College in 2009. He was born in Pittsburgh, PA, and spent his formative years in Augusta, Georgia. He attended the University of Georgia, earning a B.S. in Chemistry in 2002. He then moved to Austin, TX, to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Texas-Austin under the supervision of Stephen Martin. Before his current appointment, Dr. Miller was a postdoctoral fellow at Colorado State University, studying the biosynthetic origin of several related indole alkaloids. Kenny focuses his research on applying synthetic techniques to solve important problems. His students have developed the synthesis of antiviral, anticancer, and antiparasitic compounds. His research group is currently studying the water-splitting reactions for storing solar energy.

Selected publications and presentations

Keyes, J. K. *, Butzke, M. B. *, Miller, K. A. “Efficient Total Synthesis of Three Alpinoids via the Au(I)-Catalyzed Meyer-Schuster Rearrangement” Tet. Lett. 2022, 104, 154015.

Summers, T. J.; Tupkar, H.; Ozvat, T. M. *; Tregillus, Z. *; Miller, K. A.; DeYonker, N. J. “Computational Insight into the Rope-skipping Isomerization of Diarylether Cyclophanes” Symmetry 2021, 13(11), 2127.

Wegener, A. R.*; Miller, K. A. “Total Synthesis of Avrainvilleol” J. Org. Chem. 2017, 82, 11655-11658.

Awards & highlights

• Department of Energy - Energy Frontier Research Centers Award “Ensembles of Photosynthetic Nanoreactors” $190,000 (2022-2026)
• BLaST Equipment Grant (NIH) “Acquisition of Two Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometers for the Organic Chemistry Teaching Laboratory” $25,444 (2021)
• National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation Award “Acquisition of a 400 MHz Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectrometer” $321,512 (2020)
• Alice Admire Outstanding Teaching Award (2014)