Meet Our Director

Scarlett Miller is a systems thinker who turns research into real-world impact. She starts with problems people actually have, builds solutions with the people who will use them, and looks for the places where change will last.

Miller is the Advanced Realty Investors Director of the Cocoziello Institute of Real Estate Innovation. It is one of nine Penn State research institutes whose directors report directly to the Senior Vice President for Research, the university’s chief research officer. These institutes set strategic direction and grow research across the whole university rather than within a single college. Miller built the Institute from the ground up, starting as its only member. She has since secured multimillion-dollar endowment support, built a team of staff and associate directors, launched four co-hired tenure-line faculty positions across the university, and helped found Penn State’s Digital Twin Hub.

She is also the Paul Morrow Professor of Engineering Design and Manufacturing. Through her research group, the britelab, she studies how people interact with emerging technology across engineering design, AI, virtual and augmented reality, robotics and simulation. That research is funded by NSF (including a CAREER award), NIH, the Department of Defense and the State Department.

Some of that work now trains doctors. Miller and her collaborators in engineering and medicine developed patented simulation technology that uses haptic sensors and AI to teach high-risk procedures before clinicians reach a patient. It has trained nearly 1,000 medical residents and reduced errors by up to 46%. Miller founded Medulate® to bring the technology to hospitals. The company won first place at the 2026 3 Rivers Venture Fair and has received NIH Small Business Innovation Research funding.

Miller is an ASME Fellow, was named to ASME’s ME Watch List in 2024 and is Past Chair of the ASME Design Engineering Division. She has been an Administrative Fellow to Penn State’s Executive Vice President and Provost, a Big Ten Academic Leadership Program Fellow and an ELATES at Drexel Fellow. She holds a PhD in Industrial Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a BS and MS from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.