U.S. Ambassador John R. Miller, director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the U.S. Department of State, will leave his post to become an international affairs research professor next spring.

Miller, who oversees efforts to combat slavery around the world as a senior adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, will also conduct courses in the topic.

“Ambassador John Miller’s distinguished career in the battle against modern day slavery adds yet another dimension to the Elliott School of International Affairs,” University President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg said in a press statement.

Miller, a Washington state resident, also served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1985 until 1993 and was the chairman of the board of the Discovery Institute in Seattle, Wash., from 1999 until 2002.