Cynthia Miller, Director of University Of Pittsburgh Press, to Retire in 2013

Cynthia Miller

Cynthia Miller, director of the University of Pittsburgh Press since 1995, will retire from the University, effective February 2013, Pitt Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor Patricia E. Beeson announced to the University community.

“Under Cynthia’s leadership, the University of Pittsburgh Press has grown and thrived,” said Beeson. “She has overseen the publication of more than 850 titles, the sustenance of eight long-standing series, and the founding of six more, including world-renowned series in English composition, Latin American studies, creative writing, and the philosophy of science.

“Cynthia also has served as steward to many important technological developments,” Beeson added, “including the establishment of an e-books program and the introduction of the Espresso Book Machine in the Pitt Book Center for print-on-demand titles, one of the first of its kind among university presses.”

In 2007, the Press launched the University of Pittsburgh Press Digital Editions in collaboration with Pitt’s University Library System. This database of electronic scholarship now includes more than 750 open-access and fully searchable titles, facilitating Pitt researchers and the broader academic community.

During the Press’ 75th anniversary celebration in 2011, Miller compiled and edited and the Press published The Pittsburgh Reader: Seventy-five Years of Books About Pittsburgh to commemorate the occasion. The book, which contains selections from books published throughout the Press’ history, illustrates the progress of the Press through the years and serves as a landmark text illustrating the progress of a major American university press.

During Miller’s tenure, University of Pittsburgh Press books have received 88 awards from 15 academic societies as well as from library and publishing associations and 11 major design awards. Two Pitt Poetry Series poets, Billy Collins and Ted Kooser, have been selected as U.S. Poets Laureate during Miller’s tenure, and a third, Pitt professor of English Toi Derricotte, has been elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

Before joining the University of Pittsburgh Press, Miller served as editor-in-chief of the University Press of Kansas. She also has held leadership positions in publishing at the Brookings Institution, the Catholic University of America Press, and Wesleyan University Press.

Among Miller’s many honors is the prestigious Women’s National Book Association Book Women Award on the occasion of the association’s 70th anniversary recognizing top women in publishing, library science, literacy, and bookselling “who have made a difference” and being selected as one of only 10 university press representatives to be part of a 100-member United States Information Agency delegation to Moscow’s International Book Fair in 1987.

Miller received her Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1973 and her Master of Arts degree in U.S. history from Duke University in 1975; she received a Managing Marketing Certificate from Catholic University’s Graduate School of Business in 1986.