Michael Allen Langston is a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Tennessee.
[1] In several publications with Michael Fellows in the late 1980s, he showed that the Robertson–Seymour theorem could be used to prove the existence of a polynomial-time algorithm for problems such as linkless embedding without allowing the algorithm itself to be explicitly constructed;[2][3] this work was foundational to the field of parameterized complexity.
[4] He has also collaborated with scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory on the computational analysis of genomics data and reconstruction of gene regulatory networks.
[5] He has also served in the United States Army as a paratrooper and officer in the 17th Cavalry Regiment and as personnel database manager for VII Corps.
[8] His honors include the Commendation Medal, U.S. Army, 1979; the Distinguished Teaching Award, Texas A&M University, 1981;[5] the Distinguished Service Prize, ACM Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory, 2001;[9] and the Chancellor's Award for Research and Creative Achievement, University of Tennessee, 1994[5] and 2014.