Jean H. Langenheim (née Harmon; September 5, 1925 – March 28, 2021) was an American plant ecologist and ethnobotanist, highly respected as an eminent scholar and a pioneer for women in the field. She has done field research in arctic, tropical, and alpine environments across five continents, with interdisciplinary research that spans across the fields of chemistry, geology, and botany. Her early research helped determine the plant origins of amber and led to her career-long work investigating the chemical ecology of resin-producing trees, including the role of plant resins for plant defense and the evolution of several resin-producing trees in the tropics. She wrote what is regarded as the authoritative reference on the topic: Plant Resins: Chemistry, Evolution, Ecology, and Ethnobotany, published in 2003. Langenheim earned a PhD in botany with a minor in geology in 1953 from the University of Minnesota. She was the first female faculty member in the natural sciences and first woman to be promoted to full professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She was the first woman to serve as president for the Association for Tropical Biology, second woman to serve as president of the Ecological Society of America (ESA) and Society for Economic Botany, founded and served as the first president for the International Society of Chemical Ecology, and was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the California Academy of Sciences. During her time as ESA president, she initiated a project to document women's experiences and contributions to the field of ecology and conducted a follow-up project in 1996. Her research was summarized in two publications, and resulted in a large historical collection and a continued effort by ESA to document women's contributions to the field.
Early life and education Langenheim was born in Homer, Louisiana in 1925 and grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She graduated from Tulsa Central High School in 1943. Langenheim received a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from the University of Tulsa (UT) in 1946. She was the first woman student body president at UT. She earned her Master of Science in 1949 and PhD in 1953, both in botany with a minor in geology from the University of Minnesota. Her PhD advisor was leading plant ecologist W.S. Cooper, who went against university policy to sponsor her as a doctoral student; at the time, women could pursue up to a Master's degree. Her dissertation was entitled, "Vegetation and environmental patterns in the Crested Butte Area, Gunnison County, Colorado " and was subsequently published in Ecological Monographs.
Career and legacy Langenheim has conducted interdisciplinary research across five continents in the fields of plant ecology, paleobotany, and ethnobotany. She has conducted field work in the western United States, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Australia, New Zealand, Angola, Kenya, Ghana, and the Amazon rainforest. Her work has spanned the fields of botany, geology, and chemistry and included research on tropical plants, redwoods, and Pacific coast plants. She is known internationally for her research and is considered a trailblazer in plant sciences and ecology, and a pioneer for women in the field. She began her career at a time when opportunities for women in sciences were limited. In the introduction to her memoir, The Odyssey of a Woman Field Scientist, she recounts:"I lived through the period of being the token woman in numerous situations; I was not an activist fighting on the front lines, so to speak, but tried to demonstrate the capability of women through my own hard work and accomplishments." She was the first female faculty member in the natural sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) when she joined the faculty in 1966, and the first woman at the university to be promoted to full professor when she became Chair of the biology department in 1973. She was an advisor or co-advisor for 41 graduate students during her time on the faculty. She taught undergraduate and graduate classes at UCSC from 1966-1994, retired from the university officially in 1994, but continued to advise graduate students as emerita faculty until 2009 and remain active in research, the university community, and scientific societies. Langenheim was the first woman to serve as president for the Association for Tropical Biology (now the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation) in 1985 and second woman to serve as president for the Ecological Society of America (ESA) from 1986–87 and the Society for Economic Botany from 1993-94. She also founded and served as the first president for the International Society of Chemical Ecology from 1986-87 and served as academic vice president for the Organization for Tropical Studies from 1975-77.
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