John Miller studied at Heidelberg University in 1957-58, completed a degree in classics at Cambridge University in 1962 and then retrained at the Institute of Soviet Studies in the University of Glasgow (director Prof. Alec Nove). Between 1968 and 1972 he was a lecturer at that Institute, and from 1972 to 2003 Senior Lecturer, then Reader in Politics at La Trobe University, with an interval at the Australian National University, Canberra, 1985-1987. His teaching was primarily concerned with Soviet and East European government until the collapse of the ‘communist’ systems in 1989-91; thereafter he taught German politics and the politics of ethnicity and nationalism until he retired in 2003. His research – in which he is still active -- has been focused primarily on political careers and personnel selection in the former Soviet Union (sometimes called the ‘nomenklatura system’). He considers himself fortunate in the opportunities he has had to study and research overseas, in Germany (1957-58, 1996, 2011), Bulgaria (1963) and the Soviet Union (1967-68, 1986, 1991).-faculty profile