Norma J. Lang was a phycologist and Professor of Plant Biology, Emerita at the University of California, Davis from 1963 to 1991.
[2] Lang earned a Ph.D. in botany in 1962 from Indiana University Bloomington for her doctoral research under advisor Richard C. Starr.
She held a brief post-doctoral position under Dr. Gordon Whaley at the University of Texas funded with an NIH fellowship.
[2][3] She was recognized for this work in 1969 with the Darbaker Prize by the Botanical Society of America for "the best paper on microscopic algae published worldwide in the previous two years.
She named the genus after her doctoral advisor Richard C. Starr, who had donated the cultured bacteria to Lang before its description.