Professor Ivan (Van) Miller, Ph.D., has received the 2024 Dean's Award for Faculty Research Mentoring in the Division of Biology and Medicine. The award recognizes outstanding mentorship of junior faculty. 

Miller, a leading authority on mood disorders and suicide prevention, is director of the Psychosocial Research Program at Butler Hospital and director of the Brown Consortium for Research Innovation in Suicide Prevention. In over four decades as a researcher at Brown, he has mentored dozens of faculty, postdoctoral researchers and interns, and students.

“I often think that I get as much or more out of mentoring as do the people I mentor,” Miller said. “Just don’t tell them – they might not appreciate me as much!

Miller’s mentees have gone on to establish an impressive record of success. Of the 11 K awardees he has mentored, all have gone on to successful research careers supported by R01 or equivalent federal funding.

According to Professor Cynthia Battle, Ph.D., a large reason for that productivity is his willingness to prioritize his mentees’ careers. 

“Van’s commitment to letting mentees find their own way and make their own decisions is an important part of how he promotes their independence and success,” she said. “Van lets mentees fully drive their own careers, but if support is needed, it seems that no question is too big or too small.”

Professor Lauren Weinstock, Ph.D., director of the Clinical Psychology Internship Training Program at Brown, noted that Miller shows remarkable selflessness as a mentor.

“Van actively facilitates collaborations, encourages and supports grant submissions (even when the budgets do not allow for his own inclusion on the proposal!), and makes material resources available in an effort to promote the career development of his trainees and faculty,” she said. “Perhaps most impressive is his ability to do so given the large number of us who have been and who remain under his continued mentorship.”

Twenty of Miller’s mentees have gone on to become full professors at a variety of academic institutions. Battle, Weinstock, and Professor Lisa Uebelacker, Ph.D., are among six who stayed at Brown and continue to benefit from his example.

“Dr. Miller provides a model to me about how to fully support and invest in my own mentees,” Uebelacker said. “Even as I transitioned out of the Psychosocial Research Group to co-lead my own research group a few years ago, I frequently think about the ways in which Dr. Miller taught me about how to be a mentor.”