biology

Jane A. Langdale

Jane A. Langdale is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Jane A. Langdale rather than just read about it. In short: Jane Alison Langdale, (born 1960) is a British geneticist and academic. She is Professor of Plant Development in the Department of Biology at the University of Oxford and a Professorial Fellow at The Queen's College, Oxford.

Key takeaways

Jane A. Langdale belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Jane A. Langdale to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Jane A. Langdale from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Jane Alison Langdale, (born 1960) is a British geneticist and academic. She is Professor of Plant Development in the Department of Biology at the University of Oxford and a Professorial Fellow at The Queen's College, Oxford.

Education Langdale was educated at Barr's Hill Grammar School in Coventry and the University of Bath, where she was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Biology in 1982, specialising in microbiology. Her PhD was in human genetics and carried out at St Mary's Hospital Medical School and Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School and awarded by the University of London.

Career and research Following her PhD, Langdale was employed for five years as a postdoctoral researcher at Yale University with Tim Nelson. She returned to the UK in 1990, to work in the Department of Plant Sciences (since 2022 the Department of Biology) where she has worked since. Langdale's research interests are in two main areas:

the evolution of leaf development and meristem function in bryophytes, lycophytes and monilophytes the evolution and development of kranz anatomy in C4 plants, Langdale's research has been funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and has been published in leading peer reviewed scientific journals. Langdale is the co-author of the book How to Succeed as a Scientist: From Postdoc to Professor with materials scientist Barbara Gabrys. She featured on the BBC series, Plants: From Roots to Riches in 2014 with Kathy Willis.

Awards and honours Langdale was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2015. Her certificate of election reads: Jane Langdale has produced a body of work that has transformed our understanding of how plants make leaves and how leaves changed during major evolutionary transitions. The breadth of her research program has led to the elucidation of mechanisms operating throughout leaf development – from the earliest stages of organ inception and specification at the shoot apex, through patterning of distinct cell-types, to chloroplast biogenesis. She has done all of this in a comparative framework and has thus advanced our understanding of leaf development not just in model flowering plant species but in species from all major land plant lineages. Langdale was elected a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in 2007 and appointed Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2018 Birthday Honours for services to Plant Science. She was awarded a Doctor of Science degree (DSc) honoris causa by the University of Bath in 2018. She was elected a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States in April 2019. She was elected a corresponding member of the Australian Academy of Science in 2020. She was called as an Honorary Bencher at Middle Temple In 2025.

Personal life Langdale has always had Airedale Terriers and is the elder sibling of the barrister Rachel Langdale King's Counsel (KC).

References

This article incorporates text available under the CC BY 4.0 license.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Jane A. Langdale

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Jane A. Langdale claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Jane A. Langdale before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Jane A. Langdale ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Jane A. Langdale

In research: Jane A. Langdale appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Jane A. Langdale in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Jane A. Langdale is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1960 births, Alumni of the University of Bath, British women geneticists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Jane A. Langdale outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Jane A. Langdale in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Jane A. Langdale means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Jane A. Langdale out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Jane A. Langdale in simple terms?

Why does Jane A. Langdale matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Jane A. Langdale?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Jane A. Langdale.