Rate My Professor John Long

John Howard Long is Professor of Biology and Professor and Chair of Cognitive Science on the John Guy Vassar Chair of Natural History at Vassar College, where he has served on the faculty since 1991. He holds a BA from the College of the Atlantic and a PhD from Duke University. As Director of the Interdisciplinary Robotics Research Laboratory, Long conducts research at the intersection of robotics, biomechanics, and the locomotor evolution of early vertebrates. A vertebrate physiologist specializing in biomechanics, his work employs robots to investigate animal locomotion and evolving robots to explore evolutionary processes. This integrative approach draws on biomechanics, biomathematics, cognitive science, computer science, engineering, evolutionary biology, and robotics. Long has secured research grants from the National Science Foundation, including an INSPIRE award, and the Office of Naval Research. His laboratory collaborates with students and researchers from Vassar College, Lafayette College, the University of Vermont, the University of California, the University of North Carolina, Nekton Research, Duke University, and Shriners Hospital for Children. Vassar undergraduates have co-authored publications and presented the lab's findings at international scientific meetings.

Long's scholarly contributions include the books Darwin’s Devices: What Evolving Robots Can Teach Us About the History of Life and the Future of Technology (Basic Books, 2012) and Robotics (The Great Courses, 2015). Select publications feature 'Epigenetic operators and the evolution of physically embodied robots' (Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 2017), 'The notochord in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) undergoes profound morphological and mechanical changes during development' (Journal of Anatomy, 2017), 'Automatic control: The vertebral column of dogfish sharks behaves as a continuously variable transmission with smoothly shifting functions' (Journal of Experimental Biology, 2016), and 'Testing biological hypotheses with embodied robots: adaptations, accidents, and by-products in the evolution of vertebrates' (Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 2014). He serves as an associate editor for Soft Robotics and Frontiers in Robotics and AI (Evolutionary Robotics section) and on the editorial board of Bioinspiration and Biomimetics.