Four Duke Scholars Honored With Langford Lectureship Award

Collage of headshots
Taylor Black, Daniel Herskowitz, Tania Roy and Anne Washington

Four Duke professors from three schools have received the 2025-26 Thomas Langford Lectureship Award.

Provost Alec Gallimore, in consultation with the Committee on Appointments, Promotion and Tenure, selected the recipients of this annual award from among all recently promoted or hired faculty members.

This distinguished lecture series honors Tommy Langford, who served Duke for 41 years as Divinity School professor, dean and provost. He embodied the highest university values of scholarship, teaching, collegiality and the promotion of faculty excellence and community.

The awardees were chosen based on the appeal of their research to an interdisciplinary faculty audience, as well as their embodiment of Langford’s dedication to teaching, research and service. Each scholar will present a lunchtime lecture that is open to Duke faculty members who register for the event.

“These exemplary faculty members are making an impact through their research and scholarship and shaping the next generation of leaders,” Gallimore said. “I’m proud to be their colleague and I look forward to hearing their lectures.”

2025-26 Thomas Langford Lectureship Award Recipients

Taylor H. Black, Associate Professor of English, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences

Black specializes in 20th-century American literature, popular music studies and queer theory. A Duke faculty member since 2019, he is currently working on two projects: the American fascination with cults and cult leaders; and a critical biography of Quentin Crisp and cultural history of New York’s downtown arts scene during the 1980s. Black is the author of the 2023 book “Style: A Queer Cosmology.”

Daniel M. Herskowitz, Smart Family Professor in Judaic Studies and Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences

Herskowitz is an intellectual historian and scholar of religion. He teaches and researches philosophy, Jewish thought, Jewish-Christian relations, nationalism and secularism. Before moving to Duke, he was a research fellow and lecturer at the University of Oxford and Columbia University. He is the author of two books, “Heidegger and His Jewish Reception” (2021), winner of the Salo W. and Jeannette M. Baron Young Scholars Award, and “The Judeo‑Christian Thought of Franz Rosenzweig” (2025). He is the editor of “Hans Jonas: The Early Years” (2025) and “Studies on the Jewish Experience” (2022). He is currently writing a book on the Second Vatican Council and the Jews.

Tania Roy, Associate Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Pratt School of Engineering

Roy’s work focuses on developing novel hardware for AI. Her research is aimed at improving the energy-efficiency of AI hardware using in-sensor and near-sensor computing. She also focuses on the development of new electronic materials that can succeed and complement silicon for future technology generations. She investigates the reliability of wide bandgap semiconductor devices and new transistor technologies using electrical characterization techniques. Recently, she won the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). Roy joined the Duke faculty in 2023.

Anne L. Washington, Rothermere/Harmsworth Duke Associate Professor of Technology Policy, Sanford School of Public Policy

Washington investigates the governance of emerging digital technologies. As a leading voice in scholarship on public interest technology, her writing focuses on widely shared technical infrastructures. Her data-intensive projects draw on both interpretive research methods and computational text analysis. Prior to completing her Ph.D., Washington worked at the Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress, Barclays Global Investors and Apple. She is new to Duke.

Last Year’s Recipients

The 2024-25 Langford Lectureship Award recipients were Maureen Craig, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience; Benjamin Eva, associate professor of philosophy; Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, associate professor of literature; and Ophelia Venturelli, associate professor of biomedical engineering.

Zakiyyah Iman Jackson gave a lecture on “Blackness and the Frontiers of Thought and Being.”
Benjamin Eva’s lecture was titled “Rules of Rational Agnosticism.”