University of California Seal

Douglas Leon Mills

IN MEMORIAM

Douglas Leon Mills

Professor of Physics and Astronomy

UC Irvine
1940 – 2012

 

With the death of Douglas Leon Mills in Southern California on March 29, 2012, the world of condensed matter physics and the University of California, Irvine, lost a major figure and a dear colleague. He died after a long battle with leukemia.

 

Doug was born in Berkeley, California on April 2, 1940. He was the first member of his family to go to college. He received the B.S. degree in Engineering Physics in 1961 and the Ph.D. degree in Physics in 1965, both from the University of California, Berkeley.

 

After receiving the Ph.D. degree Doug spent a year as an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at the Universite Paris-Sud, in Orsay, France. It was there that he carried out his first investigations into magnetic properties of solids, a subject that occupied him throughout his entire professional career.

 

On his return to the U.S. from France, Doug joined the Department of Physics at the University of California, Irvine, as an Assistant Professor in 1966, one of its earliest faculty members. It was to be his academic home for the rest of his life. He became Associate Professor in 1969, and Professor in 1973.

 

In his research Doug made seminal contributions to several areas of condensed matter physics. The majority of his work was done in the context of surface physics. It is a characteristic of his work that because of his interest in the basic properties of the systems he studied he made significant predictions often years before experimental techniques were developed to the point where these predictions could be verified, as they almost invariably were.

 

Doug was a prolific scholar, who published approximately 400 scientific articles during his career. Even after formal retirement in 2010 he continued his research activities, working with students and postdocs almost until the end.

 

Although a pen and paper theorist, he collaborated extremely well with experimental and computational groups around the world.

 

Among his academic honors, Doug was an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow (1968-1970), a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a recipient of a Senior U.S. Scientist Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany (1990), a Yamada Foundation Lecturer in Japan (1984), and a Masse Honor Lecturer of the Kansas State University (1994). The Alumni Association of the University of California, Irvine, honored him with the Distinguished Faculty Research Award in 1984.

 

Doug supervised the Ph.D. thesis research of approximately 25 students. Many of them went on to become senior figures in the condensed matter theory community. He also mentored a like number of postdoctoral students, many of whom are also now well known scholars.

 

Doug was also an excellent classroom teacher, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. As a consequence of teaching a new graduate course on nonlinear optics, he wrote a well-known book, Nonlinear Optics: Basic Concepts (Springer, 1991). He received the Department of Physics and Astronomy Outstanding Teacher Award in 1985, and the School of Physical Sciences Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 1995.

 

His passion for teaching and inspiring students was not confined to UCI. His principal non-academic diversion was sailing. He competed many times in the annual Newport Beach Ensenada yacht race, and was commodore of the Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club in Newport Beach. He supported the “students” of sailing by founding the Bahia Sail Racing Association, which supports the next generation of amateur sailors, one of whom qualified for the 2012 Olympic Games.

 

Doug served the condensed matter physics community by membership on the organizing committees of several magnetism conferences. In addition, he was a member of the editorial board of the journal Physics Reports, was an editor of Comments on Condensed Matter Physics (Gordon and Breach), and an editor of the book series Contemporary Concepts of Condensed Matter Science (Elsevier).

 

Doug served the Department of Physics and Astronomy in several ways. He was Chair of the Department from 1983 to 1986, and over the years helped to recruit many of its current members. He always had time to chat, to give advice and encouragement, or relate some of his experiences. His service to UC Irvine, however, extended beyond his department. He was the Director of the Institute for Surface and Interface Science, a multidepartmental research center, from 1996 to 2001. He served on, and chaired, many academic senate committees. In this service he was a staunch, and vocal, defender of high academic standards.

 

Doug was a great storyteller and had an excellent collection of them. He had a number of collaborators in Chile, Brazil, Germany, and other countries, which he enjoyed visiting. He was also a very enthusiastic man who was always ready to share an opinion on any subject, whether it concerned South-American music, an article in New York Times, or the latest work on the skyrmion lattices on a surface of a magnet. He was a very generous person, especially to younger colleagues, with his time, ideas, and constant encouragement. He fought his illness with amazing courage, approaching it as a problem than needed a more and more intricate solution. He was a great optimist until the very end.

 

Doug is survived by his wife, Sandy, his children, Sherylle and Scott, and three grandchildren, Cage, Jack and Megan.

 

Distinguished scholar, outstanding teacher, a most congenial colleague, and a warm human being, Doug Mills is mourned by the condensed matter community, and is greatly missed by all who knew him.

 

 

Alexander L. Chernyshev

Professor of Physics and Astronomy

 

Alexei A. Maradudin

Professor of Physics and Astronomy

 

Steven R. White

Professor of Physics and Astronomy

 

Clare Yu

Professor of Physics and Astronomy