George Langford

George Langford
George Malcolm Langford (born August 26, 1944) is a Professor of Biology, Dean Emeritus of the College of Arts and Sciences, and a distinguished Professor of Neuroscience at Syracuse University College of Arts and Sciences in Syracuse, New York. He is known for his work on the cell and molecular biology of the actin cytoskeleton in health and disease.
Early life and education
Langford was born August 26, 1944, in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. He earned his Bachelors in Biology from the Fayetteville State University in Fayetteville, North Carolina in 1966. He earned his PhD in 1971 in Cell Biology at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago under William Danforth. During graduate school, he also worked at the Argonne National Laboratory with Robert Webb.
Langford trained as a National Institutes of Health (NIH) post-doctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania with Shinya Inoué between 1971-1973.
Career
Langford began his career as an assistant professor in 1973 at University of Massachusetts Boston and moved to Howard University in 1977. He worked as an associate professor, and later as a full professor at UNC Chapel Hill. From 1991 to 2005, he was the Ernest Everett Just Professor of Natural Sciences and Professor of Biological Sciences at Dartmouth College. He served as the Dean at UMass Amherst from 2005 until 2008.
Langford became the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University in August 2008. He was succeeded by Karin Ruhlandt in 2015.
Service
In 1985, Langford was named the first chairman of the Minorities Affairs Committee of the American Society for Cell Biology. Langford was nominated by President Bill Clinton to the National Science Board where he served a six-year term on the 24-member panel from 1998-2004. He has served on the boards of the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Awards in the Biomedical Sciences Advisory Committee, the NIH SYN Study Section, the National Research Council Associateships Program Committee, the Sherman Fairchild Foundation Scientific Advisory Board, and the Massachusetts Life Science Collaborative Leadership Council.
Awards
Langford became a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2013.
He was elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in April 2021.
Langford received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the Beloit College in 2001.
Personal life
Langford is married to Sylvia Langford and they have three children.
References
External links
Langford's Interview with The History Makers
1944 births
African-American biologists
Cell biologists
Dartmouth College faculty
Fayetteville State University alumni
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Fellows of the American Society for Cell Biology
Howard University faculty
Illinois Institute of Technology
Living people
People from Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina
Scientists from North Carolina
Syracuse University faculty
University of Massachusetts Boston faculty
University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty
21st-century African-American people
20th-century African-American people