Jane Langdale

Prof. Jane Langdale, CBE FRS FAA, is a British plant biologist and academic. Prof. Langdale's research is broadly themed upon the genetics and evolution of plant development. Her past research used diverse taxa including mosses, lycophytes, ferns and seed plants to investigate how developmental mechanisms were modified during land plant evolution. Currently, her research is focused on dissecting the genetic mechanisms that pattern the distinctive leaf anatomy found in plants that carry out C4 photosynthesis. This work is carried out with a view to understanding how developmental mechanisms were altered as the more efficient C4 pathway evolved, and with the long-term aim of engineering C4 anatomy into agronomically important C3 crops such as rice.

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 2018 for services to Plant Science. She was awarded a Doctor of Science degree (D.Sc.) honoris causa by the University of Bath in 2018. Jane Langdale was elected an International Member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States in 2019 and a Corresponding Member of the Australian Academy of Science in 2020.