She is the (Bishop) W. Earl Ledden Professor Emerita of Religion at Syracuse University.
Miller completed her BA in history at Mary Washington College of University of Virginia in 1969.
She then did a year of Special Study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel from 1969 to 1970.
Miller spent a year as an Assistant Professor of Religion at the University of Washington from 1975 to 1976, before moving to New York and rising through the ranks of the Department of Religion at Syracuse University from 1977–present.
She has also been on the editorial board for journals such as The Second Century (now the Journal of Early Christian Studies, for which she was also on the Board of Senior Editors), The Syracuse Scholar which ran from 1979 to 1991, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, and Church History: A Journal of Christianity and Culture as well as the Patristic Monograph Series and being a member of the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Grant Evaluation Committee.