Michael Allen Langston is a professor of
electrical engineering and computer science
Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) is an academic program at many universities which comprises scientific and engineering aspects of computing. CSE is also a term often used in Europe to translate the name of engineering informatics academic ...
at the
University of Tennessee
The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state ...
.
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 minor 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 c ...
could be used to prove the existence of a
polynomial-time algorithm
In 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 performed by t ...
for problems such as
linkless embedding
In topological graph theory, a mathematical discipline, a linkless embedding of an undirected graph is an embedding of the graph into three-dimensional Euclidean space in such a way that no two cycles of the graph are linked. A flat embedding is ...
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 U.S. multiprogram science and technology national laboratory sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and administered, managed, and operated by UT–Battelle as a federally funded research an ...
on the computational analysis of
genomics 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 fun ...
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 (Washington State, WSU, or informally Wazzu) is a public land-grant research university with its flagship, and oldest, campus in Pullman, Washington. Founded in 1890, WSU is also one of the oldest land-grant uni ...
, the University of Illinois
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univer ...
, 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. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...
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 land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...
as a paratrooper
A paratrooper is a military parachutist—someone trained to parachute into a military operation, and usually functioning as part of an airborne force. Military parachutists (troops) and parachutes were first used on a large scale during Worl ...
and officer in the 17th Cavalry Regiment 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, 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 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
{{US-academic-bio-stub