Tiller always has a personal touch, they say. For example, depending on the size of the class, he tries to invite his students to lunch with him and his wife, Martha, a retired education professor. Dr. Tiller is one of the best chemical engineering professors here. The filtration and solid liquid separation field isn't glamorous like building bridges or airplanes, but it's the kind of field where your work seeps into the infrastructure of modern society. While filtration and separation aren't even study options at some schools.
Tiller teaches in part to keep the field vibrant.
Although he jokes that he he's not smart enough to quit, the opposite is more correct. He is too smart to stop. Tiller's theories dominate 70 to 80 percent of the field, estimates Chen. Tiller came to UH in 1955 after teaching at Cincinnati, Vanderbilt and Lamar universities. He was UH's first engineering dean.