He earned his PhD in 1971 in Cell Biology at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago under William Danforth.

[5] Langford trained as a National Institutes of Health (NIH) post-doctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania with Shinya Inoué between 1971-1973.

[11][12] In 1985, Langford was named the first chairman of the Minorities Affairs Committee of the American Society for Cell Biology.

[3] Langford was nominated by President Bill Clinton to the National Science Board where he served a six-year term on the 24-member panel from 1998-2004.

He has served on the boards of the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Awards in the Biomedical Sciences Advisory Committee, the NIH SYN Study Section, the National Research Council Associateships Program Committee, the Sherman Fairchild Foundation Scientific Advisory Board, and the Massachusetts Life Science Collaborative Leadership Council.