She held various academic positions and jobs in both the United States and Japan before accepting this named chair in 2010.
She graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a double major in Asian studies and anthropology in 1977, and completed a Master of Arts degree in anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1983 on the topic of aizuchi[4] Japanese listening behavior.
[5][6] Miller's research interests are in the fields of interdisciplinary Japan studies and linguistic anthropology.
She has done research on diverse topics, including divination, the kawaii aesthetic, conduct literature, youth fashion and the beauty industry, and historic figures such as Himiko and Abe no Seimei.
In Introducing Japanese Popular Culture, edited by Alisa Freedman and Toby Slade.
ASIA Network Exchange: A Journal for Asian Studies in the Liberal Art 24 (1), 2017.
[18] "Japan’s trendy Word Grand Prix and Kanji of the Year: Commodified language forms in multiple contexts."
In Language and Materiality: Ethnographic and Theoretical Explorations, edited by Jillian Cavanaugh and Shalini Shankar.
ASIA Network Exchange: A Journal for Asian Studies in the Liberal Arts 18 (1), 2010.
In Japanese Language, Gender, and Ideology: Cultural Models and Real People, edited by Shigeko Okamoto and Janet Shibamoto Smith.
In The Life of Language: Papers in Linguistics in Honor of William Bright, edited by Jane Hill, P.J.
In Second Language Acquisition in a Study Abroad Context, edited by Barbara F. Freed, John Benjamins, 1995.
[37][38][39] "Two aspects of Japanese and American co-worker interaction: Giving instruction and creating rapport."
In The Pragmatics of Intercultural and International Communication, edited by Jan Blommaert and Jef Verschueren, John Benjamins, 1991.