DEI Award - ABRF 2025 Annual Meeting

George M. Langford is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Neuroscience and Professor Emeritus of Biology at Syracuse University and Dean Emeritus of the College of Arts and Sciences. He spent most of his research career studying the structure and function of the actin cytoskeleton and myosin motors in neurons and pancreatic beta cells. He served as dean of the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, the inaugural Ernest Everett Just Professor of Natural Sciences at Dartmouth College and professor of Physiology, the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. In 2021 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was appointed in 1998 by President Clinton to the National Science Board and awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letter by Beloit College in 2001. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and a Fellow of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). He was a member of the Science Education Advisory Board of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and was former chair of the Board of Directors of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund (BWF). He is Founder and Program Director of the PAIR-UP Imaging Science program funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, BWF and CZI. He was recipient of the 2022 ASCB Public Service Award. He is now an Adjunct Scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA.

ABRF is pleased to present the ABRF DEI award to Dr. Langford at the ABRF Annual Meeting on Tuesday, March 25, and we look forward to his presentation following the acceptance of the award.

The PairUp Imaging Science Program, a Model for Workforce Development
Many universities have established programs to support a diverse scientific workforce, but these programs have been marginally successful primarily because they fail to address critical elements such as cultural isolation. A successful workforce initiative that attracts individuals from historically marginalized groups and supports them as they pursue their research careers, must take a systems approach to build in all the functionalities required to form a robust ecosystem. The PairUp imaging science program for Black imaging scientists, founded in 2020, has succeeded in creating such a model to address this problem. PairUp takes a multipronged, systems approach that includes: (1) training and access to the latest imaging equipment for biomedical research; (2) building strong coalitions with major imaging cores at R1 universities; (3) building community among Black scientists to reinforce cultural identity; (4) establishing collaborative research teams of scientists; and (5) providing intensive professional development training. Each element of the program is required to create a culturally responsive ecosystem that affirms and validates the culture, characteristics, experiences, perspectives, and customs of Black scientists, who are culturally isolated at historically White institutions. A key component of the PAIR‐UP imaging science program are activities designed to reinforce a strong cultural identity in the workplace. This novel intervention strategy is designed to mitigate the effects of cultural isolation that result when Black scientists are the only ones in their departments/programs. The working hypothesis of PAIR‐UP is that maintaining a strong cultural identity empowers Black scientists to be more creative and productive and therefore compete at the highest level.