Hermann Joseph Muller (1890–1967) was an American geneticist and educator. He was born in New York City and attended Columbia University, earning his B.A. in 1910 and his Ph.D. in 1916. A student of Thomas Hunt Morgan, he taught at Rice Institute in Texas from 1915 until 1918, at Columbia from 1918 until 1920, and at the University of Texas from 1920 until 1933, when he became senior geneticist of the Institute of Genetics in Moscow, where he remained until 1937. In 1945, he became professor of zoology at Indiana University. His method for recognizing spontaneous gene mutation led to his discovery of a technique for artificially inducing mutations by means of X rays that has since had broad theoretical and practical application. For this discovery he was awarded the 1946 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
