Dr. Charles W. Miller, PhD, (center, above) is the Chief of the Radiation Studies Branch, Division of Environmental Hazards & Health Effects and National Center for Environmental Health for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

As a Health Physicist, Dr. Miller deals with emergency and emergency preparedness with significant overlap between governmental national security preparedness, medical physics in the health care system, and at times international espionage.  

Dr. Miller joined the CDC in 1992 and currently heads the NCE's Radiation Studies Branch at the CDC. The "CDC's Radiation Studies Branch was beginning its program in investigating the health impact of historic releases of radioactive materials from the Department of Energy's former nuclear weapons production and testing sites." His role has a significant impact in the field of Medical Physics, where "the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)" develops "guidance in the areas of radiological population monitoring, handling contaminated fatalities, and using hospital equipment for emergency monitoring. CDC is also developing training and information materials that may be useful to medical health physicists who are called upon to assist in developing facility response plans or respond to a nuclear or radiological incident." The medical (health) physicist working in a clinical setting plays a key role in the event of a radiological emergency, such as in a terrorist attack involving a radiological dispersal device or an improvised nuclear device, a 'dirty' bomb. His/her role is to train and coordinate hospital administration and personnel so as to evaluate the level of radiological contamination the public is exposed, to provide an understanding of the significance of this exposure to both hospital personal and patients, and to orient staff on radiation contamination, decontamination, and remediation. (Miller CW, et al., Health Physics 93:S187;2007)

At times, Dr. Miller is called upon to solve rather unusual yet intriguing cases. As an example, an unusual international case study occurred on November 23, 2006, where a British citizen died of 'unknown' causes. (see his presentation entitled "Murder at the Millennium: A Perspective on a Po-210 Poisoning Incident")