Herbert Daniel Landahl

Herbert Daniel Landahl, Ph.D. is an American mathematical biophysicist who was born in Fancheng, China, on April 23, 1913. He obtained with Magna Cum Laude his AB degree at St. Olaf College in 1934, and then earned this SM in Physics at the University of Chicago in 1936. He then became very interested in mathematical biophysics and was the world's first PhD student to graduate in Mathematical Biophysics at the University of Chicago in 1941 under the supervision of Professor Nicolas Rashevsky, the Founder of Mathematical Biophysics and Mathematical Biology.

Academic career

Herbert D. Landahl was hired at first in 1937 as a Research Assistant in the Psychometrics Laboratory at the University of Chicago, and then transferred to change his research to the field of mathematical biophysics as a Research Assistant in the Department Of Physiology between 1939 and 1942. After graduation in 1941 with a PhD in Mathematical Biophysics, he was able to continue as a Research Associate of Professor Nicolas Rashevsky between 1942 and 1945. He was then promoted in rapid succession to a tenured track Assistant Professorship in 1945, and to a tenured position of Associate Professor and full Professor of Mathematical Biology between 1948 and 1958. In 1945 he co-authored with Scott Alston Householder a fundamental book on the "Mathematical biophysics of the central nervous system." (The Principia Press, 1945). He became a full Professor of Biophysics in 1964 and continued to work as full professor at the University of Chicago (UC) until 1968 when he was lured by the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) after the former UC president declined to promote him to the Chair of the Committee for Mathematical Biology as Nicolas Rashevsky's successor upon the latter's planned retirement in 1969. As a result of the insuing disagreement between Rashevsky and the UC president, Nicolas Rashevsky resigned from his UC position in 1968 and moved to Ann Arbor in Michigan. Dr. Landahl took up his new position of full Professor of Biophysics and Biomathematics in 1969 at UCSF where he became a Professor Emeritus in 1980, and continues today his research and related supervisory/ advisory activities.

Main research interests

Dr. Landahl's research interests were, and are, focused on the dynamics of neural networks and the central nervous system (CNS). He also studied the biophysics of cell division, biological effects of radiation, population interactions in ecology, biological clocks and insulin biosynthesis. He published extensively in these fields as detailed in the UCSF official Register of the Herbert Daniel Landahl Papers, 1947-88Landahl (Herbert D.)

Honors and society memberships

Dr. Landahl cofounded in 1972 with George Karreman and Anthony Bartholomay "The Society for Mathematical Biology" (SMB), and served as SMB's first Vice-President between 1972 and 1982. He also served between 1973 and 1981 as the Chief Editor of the Bulletin of Mathematical Biology-the main publishing journal of SMB.

Dr. Landahl is also member of the Biometric Society, the Biophysical Society, and the New York Academy of Sciences. He was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, (AAAS).

See also

• Mathematical biology
• Nicolas Rashevsky
• George Karreman
• University of Chicago
• University of California at San Francisco
• Theoretical biology
• The Society for Mathematical Biology
• Bulletin of Mathematical Biology
• Neurophysiology
• Neurons
• Neurodynamics
• Population dynamics
• Psychometrics
• Psychophysics
• Biophysics
• SIAM
• Biophysical Society

Further reading

• Alston Scott Householder and Herbert Daniel Landahl.1945. Mathematical biophysics of the central nervous system, The Principia Press.
• Landahl, H.D. 1987. Approximate Solution for Capillary Exchange Models with and without Axial Mixing., Bull. Math. Biology, 49, (6):719-728.
• Landahl, H.D. 1977. Some conditions for sustained oscillations in chain processes with feedback inhibition and saturable removal., Bull. Math. Biology, 39: 291-296.
• Landahl, Herbert Daniel. Interferometer measurements of wavelength in the far red of the hydrogen band spectrum. (1936). Thesis (M.A.) --University of Chicago, Department of Physics.
• Landahl, Herbert Daniel. "Studies in the mathematical biophysics of cell division". (1941), Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Department of Physiology.
• Karreman, George, and Landahl, H. D. On the mathematical biology of excitation phenomena. Cold Springs Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology. XVII: The Neuron (1952), p. 293.

External links

• The International Society for Mathematical Biology Home Page
• American Association for the Advancement of Science, AAAS
• University of California, San Francisco, UCSF
• University of Chicago
• American Association for the Advancement of Science website
• 1973 Constitution of the AAAS