Professor Langdale's research is broadly themed upon the genetics and evolution of plant development. Her past research used diverse taxa including mosses, lycophytes, ferns and seed plants to investigate how developmental mechanisms were modified during land plant evolution. Currently, the research is focused on dissecting the genetic mechanisms that pattern the distinctive leaf anatomy found in plants that carry out C4 photosynthesis. This work is carried out with a view to understanding how developmental mechanisms were altered as the more efficient C4 pathway evolved, and with the long-term aim of engineering C4 anatomy into agronomically important C3 crops such as rice.