Susanna Millar

Susanna Millar, née Friedmann, was born in Berlin, Germany, and emigrated to England in 1939. She received her B.A. with honors in psychology (1947) and philosophy (1945) from the University of London, while working as a teacher. From 1948 to 1952, she taught psychology part-time for London University. She was a Fellow at the National Association for Mental Health in 1951-1952 and an educational psychologist. She received her doctoral degree for research on social attitudes in understanding verbal materials from the University of London in 1952. In 1959, she married Fergus Millar (later Sir Fergus), an ancient history scholar, with whom she had three children. While the children were young, she lectured part-time at Birkbeck College and at the Oxford University Department of Experimental Psychology. Dr. Millar's landmark book The Psychology of Play, published in 1968, was translated into 10 other languages. She taught for various Oxford colleges until 1981, when she came to St. Hugh’s College as lecturer and director of psychological studies, and was elected to a Senior Research Fellowship in 1987. After retiring from St. Hugh’s in 1991, she continued her research in the Department, and published three books: Understanding and Representing Space: Theory and Evidence from Studies with Blind and Sighted Children (1994); Reading by Touch (1997); and Space and Sense: Essays in Cognitive Psychology (2008).