Michael Allen Langston is a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the

University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (or The University of Tennessee; UT; UT Knoxville; or colloquially UTK or Tennessee) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee, United St ...

. In several publications with

Michael Fellows Michael Ralph Fellows AC HFRSNZ MAE (born June 15, 1952 in Upland, California) is a computer scientist and the Elite Professor of Computer Science in the Department of Informatics at the University of Bergen, Norway as of January 2016. Biogra ...

in the late 1980s, he showed that the

Robertson–Seymour theorem In graph theory, the Robertson–Seymour theorem (also called the graph minors theorem) states that the undirected graphs, partially ordered by the graph minor relationship, form a well-quasi-ordering. Equivalently, every family of graphs that is ...

could be used to prove the existence of a

polynomial-time algorithm In theoretical computer science, the time complexity is the computational complexity that describes the amount of computer time it takes to run an algorithm. Time complexity is commonly estimated by counting the number of elementary operations p ...

for problems such as linkless embedding without allowing the algorithm itself to be explicitly constructed; this work was foundational to the field of

parameterized complexity In computer science, parameterized complexity is a branch of computational complexity theory that focuses on classifying computational problems according to their inherent difficulty with respect to ''multiple'' parameters of the input or output. ...

. He has also collaborated with scientists at

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1943, the laboratory is sponsored by the United Sta ...

on the computational analysis of

genomics Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of molecular biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, ...

data and reconstruction of

gene regulatory network A gene (or genetic) regulatory network (GRN) is a collection of molecular regulators that interact with each other and with other substances in the cell to govern the gene expression levels of mRNA and proteins which, in turn, determine the fu ...

s. Langston received his doctorate (PhD) in 1981 at Texas A&M University in computing science. His dissertation was ''Processor scheduling with improved heuristic algorithms''. He worked at

Washington State University Washington State University (WSU, or colloquially Wazzu) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Pullman, Washington, United States. Founded in 1890, WSU is also one of the oldest Land-grant uni ...

, the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

, and the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

Global Campus Europe before taking his present position at the University of Tennessee. He has also served in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

as a

paratrooper A paratrooper or military parachutist is a soldier trained to conduct military operations by parachuting directly into an area of operations, usually as part of a large airborne forces unit. Traditionally paratroopers fight only as light infa ...

and officer in the

17th Cavalry Regiment The 17th Cavalry Regiment is a historical organization within the United States Army that began as a regiment of cavalry after the Pancho Villa Expedition. The unit was constituted on 1 July 1916 in the Regular Army as the 17th Cavalry at Fort ...

and as personnel database manager for

VII Corps 7th Corps, Seventh Corps, or VII Corps may refer to: * VII Corps (Grande Armée), a corps of the Imperial French army during the Napoleonic Wars * VII Corps (German Empire), a unit of the Imperial German Army prior to and during World War I * VII ...

. His honors include the

Commendation Medal The Commendation Medal is a mid-level United States military decoration presented for sustained acts of heroism or meritorious service. Each branch of the United States Armed Forces issues its own version of the Commendation Medal, with a fift ...

, U.S. Army, 1979; the Distinguished Teaching Award, Texas A&M University, 1981; the Distinguished Service Prize, ACM Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory, 2001; and the Chancellor's Award for Research and Creative Achievement, University of Tennessee, 1994 and 2014.

References

External links

Mike Langston's Homepage
* Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American computer scientists Texas A&M University alumni Syracuse University alumni University of Tennessee faculty 20th-century United States Army personnel Washington State University faculty University of Illinois faculty {{US-academic-bio-stub