Jane A. Langdale facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Jane Langdale
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Jane Langdale at Royal Society admissions day in London, July 2015
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Jane Alison Langdale
25 August 1960 |
| Education | Barr's Hill School |
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| Thesis | Gene detection using immobilised DNA probes (1985) |
Jane Alison Langdale is a famous British geneticist and professor. She was born in 1960. She teaches about how plants grow and develop at the University of Oxford. She is also a special fellow at The Queen's College, Oxford.
Becoming a Scientist
Jane Langdale went to Barr's Hill School in Coventry. She then studied at the University of Bath. In 1982, she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Biology. She focused on microbiology, which is the study of tiny living things. Later, she got her PhD from the University of London. Her PhD research was in human genetics.
Researching Plants
After her PhD, Jane Langdale worked as a researcher at Yale University for five years. In 1990, she came back to the UK. She joined the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Oxford. This department is now called the Department of Biology. She has worked there ever since.
Langdale's research focuses on two main areas:
- How leaves have changed and grown over time in different plants. This includes plants like bryophytes (mosses), lycophytes (clubmosses), and ferns.
- How a special way plants make food, called C4 carbon fixation, developed. This process helps plants grow well in hot, sunny places.
Her work has been supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). Her findings have been published in important scientific journals. These include Nature and Science.
Jane Langdale also wrote a book called How to Succeed as a Scientist: From Postdoc to Professor. She appeared on a BBC TV show in 2014 called Plants: From Roots to Riches.
Awards and Honors
Jane Langdale has received many awards for her important work.
In 2015, she became a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). This is a very high honor for scientists in the UK. Her election certificate said that her work has greatly improved our understanding of how plants make leaves. It also mentioned how leaves changed during big steps in plant evolution.
In 2007, she became a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). In 2018, she was given the title of Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE). This was for her great contributions to plant science. The University of Bath also gave her a special Doctor of Science degree in 2018.
In 2019, she was chosen as a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States. In 2020, she became a corresponding member of the Australian Academy of Science.
About Her Life
Jane Langdale loves Airedale Terrier dogs and has always had them. She is the older sister of Rachel Langdale, who is a barrister (a type of lawyer).
