Dr. Joe Ziller has served as the first director of the X-ray Crystallography Facility at UCI since 1986. Originally from Pennsylvania, he obtained his B.S. in chemistry from the University of Scranton in 1981. He completed his doctoral studies (1986) in inorganic chemistry/X-ray crystallography at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, under the direction of Dr. Melvyn R. Churchill. He research involved single-crystal X-ray diffraction studies of mononuclear and cluster organometallic complexes and the synthesis and structural characterization of ruthenium carbonyl complexes. Dr. Ziller oversees the operation of the facility, maintains the instruments, trains and assists users with structure determination and develops low temperature data collection and manipulation techniques. 

Dr. Ziller is a member of the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the American Crystallographic Association (ACA).