Robert J. Lang
American physicist, mathematician and origami expert
Robert James Lang (born May 4, 1961) is an American physicist who is also one of the foremost origami artists and theorists in the world. He is known for his complex and elegant designs, most notably of insects and animals. He has studied the mathematics of origami and used computers to study the theories behind origami. He has made great advances in making real-world applications of origami to engineering problems.
Education and early occupation
Lang was born in Dayton, Ohio, and grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. Lang studied electrical engineering at the California Institute of Technology, where he met his wife-to-be, Diane. He earned a master's degree in electrical engineering at Stanford University in 1983, and returned to Caltech for a Ph.D. in applied physics, with a dissertation titled Semiconductor Lasers: New Geometries and Spectral Properties.
Lang began work for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1988. Lang also worked as a research scientist for Spectra Diode Labs of San Jose, California, and then at JDS Uniphase, also of San Jose.
Lang has authored or co-authored over 80 publications on semiconductor lasers, optics, and integrated optoelectronics, and holds 46 patents in these fields.
The public source identifies “Robert J. Lang” as american physicist, mathematician and origami expert. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Robert, Lang and American.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q642995. VIAF identifies the subject as 78166365. The Library of Congress control number is n2004022193. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1961, 1983 and 1988.
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This entry incorporates text from “Robert J. Lang” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.