Deb Miller

Deb Miller recently retired as the Director of the KU Public Management Center, the professional development arm for the School of Public Affairs and Administration.

Previously, Ms. Miller served as a Member of the Surface Transportation Board. The Surface Transportation Board (STB) is the successor agency to the Interstate Commerce Commission. The STB is an economic regulatory agency that Congress charged with resolving railroad rate and service disputes and reviewing proposed railroad mergers. Ms. Miller served on the board from April of 2014 to December of 2018.

Ms. Miller also served as a Senior Consultant with Cambridge Systematics, Inc., a firm specializing in transportation planning and policy, primarily for public-sector clients. From 2003 to 2011 Ms. Miller was the Secretary of the Kansas Department of Transportation (Kansas DOT), a term of office marked by her distinguished service for three successive Governors of Kansas. She has the distinction of being the longest-serving Secretary of Transportation in Kansas history.

Previously, Ms. Miller worked for HNTB, a national architecture, engineering, and planning firm, and as the Director of the Kansas DOT’s Division of Planning and Development. Before beginning her work in transportation, Ms. Miller was a Policy Assistant to Kansas Governor John Carlin. Ms. Miller has been active with the Transportation Research Board (TRB), a division of the National Research Council that is the principal operating agency of the National Academies of Sciences, and was a member of the TRB's Executive Committee for five years, including a year serving as Chair. She also has been active with the American Association of Highway and Transportation Officials, where she headed numerous task forces and workgroups and served for nine years as the Chair of the Standing Committee on Planning. She also served on the Eno Foundation's Board of Advisors.

She is currently Chair of the Kansas Turnpike Authority. Ms. Miller graduated magna cum laude from Kansas State University with a B.S. in Sociology.