Harry Lang research on NTID history collection

Dr. Harry Lang is a deaf professor who retired after 41 years at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology. He taught physics and mathematics full time for 14 years, chaired NTID's faculty development department for 7 years, and also taught a methods course to science and mathematics teacher candidates for over 30 years. Lang moved full time into the Master of Science in Secondary Education (MSSE) teacher preparation program in the fall of 2006. Upon retirement in 2011, he was honored with the rank of Professor Emeritus.

Lang is a graduate of the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, and earned his BS in Physics from Bethany College (West Virginia), his MS degree in Electrical Engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology, and his doctorate in Education from the University of Rochester.

His research at NTID focused primarily on teaching and learning and the use of technical signs in the science and mathematics classroom. He has published over 50 research and theoretical papers on teaching science and mathematics to deaf students.

Lang has published nine books. Educating Deaf Students: From Research to Practice, published by Oxford University Press, was co-authored with Marc Marschark and John Albertini. His other books include three major biographies. Edmund Booth, Deaf Pioneer was published in 2004. Teaching From the Heart and Soul: The Life and Work of Robert F. Panara and, Moments of Truth: Robert R. Davila, the Story of a Deaf Leader (with Oscar Cohen and Joseph Fischgrund) were published in the Fall of 2007.

He also published a history of NTID, From Dream to Reality (with Karen Conner) and a book on the contributions of deaf women and men in fields of science since the Renaissance (Silence of the Spheres: The Deaf Experience in the History of Science). He co-authored with Bonnie Meath-Lang, Deaf Persons in the Arts and Sciences: A Biographical Dictionary, which includes 150 biographies of deaf scientists, artists, engineers, actors, writers, poets, and other professionals. A Phone of Our Own: The Deaf Insurrection Against Ma Bell, is a history of the invention of the acoustic telephone coupler and its impact on the lives of deaf people, and was published by Gallaudet University Press. He also wrote a history of his alma mater, Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf.

Lang was the Senior Advisor on the production team of the PBS documentary, Through Deaf Eyes. In 2008, the film makers, Larry Hott and Diane Garey, received the DuPont Columbia Journalism Award for this film, which is considered the Pulitzer Prize for TV documentaries.

In 1984 Lang was honored at RIT with the Eisenhart Award for Outstanding Teaching, and in 2006, he was awarded the Rochester Institute of Technology Trustees Scholarship Award in recognition of establishing an outstanding record of academic scholarship.