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Birth:          20 Jan 1924 Effingham, Ill.
Death:          5 Dec 2005 Princeton, N.J.

Notes
!PUBL
1981 book (see for details)
ssn 156 28 5957 issued in NJ
from http://www.towntopics.com/dec0705/obits.html
[photo in files]
Robert G. MillsRobert G. Mills, 81, of Pennington, formerly of Princeton, died 
December 5 at Stony Brook Assisted Living in Pennington. He was the son of Gail A. 
Mills, a former Controller of Princeton University, and Helen June Taylor Mills. 
Born in Effingham, Ill., he moved with his parents to Princeton in 1928 and graduated 
from Princeton High School in 1941. He attended Princeton University, graduating 
with a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering as a member of the class 
of 1945. Like many of the wartime generation, he graduated early, in 1944, in order to 
enter military service. He served in the U.S. Navy Reserve as a Chief Petty Officer 
from 1944 to 1946, largely at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.
Following the war, he studied at the University of Michigan, earning a master's degree 
in mathematics in 1947. He then earned a Ph.D. in physics at the University of 
California, Berkeley, in 1952. As a graduate student he was involved in the Upper 
Atmosphere Research Program, putting instrumentation on captured V-2 rockets at 
White Sands, New Mexico. During this time he met his future wife, Mary Addie Steer. 
They were married in 1947. In 1952 he moved to Switzerland where he did post-
graduate research at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. After 
returning from Switzerland in 1954 he became one of the first scientists to join the 
world's initial research program in fusion power, Project Matterhorn. The project 
developed into the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. 
He was involved in the design of a number of Stellarators and Tokamaks, experimental 
fusion reactors, and other research machines at PPPL. He led the Engineering 
Division at PPPL for 20 years. After retirement from PPPL he became a lecturer with 
the rank of professor in Princeton University's Chemical Engineering Department, and 
established an interdepartmental program in Plasma Science and Fusion Technology.
He was the Princeton Borough representative on the Stony Brook Regional Sewerage 
Authority from 1978 to 1991 and for a time held the position of treasurer. 
He was a fellow of the IEEE, the American Nuclear Society, and the American Physics 
Society; and a member of other academic societies as well as the North American 
Rock Garden Society. 
His hobbies included flying airplanes and sailplanes, photography, bowling, hiking, 
and reading mysteries. He enjoyed traveling to see and photograph total solar 
eclipses.
He is survived by a daughter, Susan Mills Kifuthu; a son, Robert W. Mills; and six 
grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held this Sunday, December 11 at 2 p.m. at The Mather-
Hodge Funeral Home, 40 Vandeventer Avenue.
Omer/Steer/Callahan/Calvert Tree on ancestry

Parents
MILLS Gail A. ()
TAYLOR Helen June ()

Siblings
MILLS Robert Gail (20 Jan 1924 - 5 Dec 2005)

Marriage To STEER Mary Addie (22 Jul 1923 - 10 Dec 2004)
    m. 25 May 1946 Princeton, N.J.

Notes

Parents
STEER Earl Melville (21 Jun 1886 - 10 Jul 1959)
CALVERT Carrie Ethel (20 Oct 1890 - 23 Jul 1966)

Children by STEER Mary Addie 22 Jul 1923 - 10 Dec 2004
MILLS Susan Elizabeth ()
MILLS Robert William ()

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