Having overcome
poverty and strife, Erich Jarvis has a new song to sing. The world-renowned
neurobiologist at Duke University Medical Center is noted for his research
of songbirds, parrots and hummingbirds. By learning how birds are able
to project sound, Jarvis hopes his studies lead to the treatment of speech
problems in humans, such as stuttering.
Jarvis is currently an associate professor in the department
of neurobiology at the North Carolina university, where he heads a team
of researchers in the field of vocal communication. Using songbirds as
the main animal model, the scientists are learning how the brain is able
to learn the behavior of sound.
At the age of six, Jarvis' mother took him and his three
siblings to live with relatives after dealing with their father's continuous
battle with schizophrenia and drugs.
Being a witness to his father's deterioration, Jarvis was
determined not to become a statistic.
While his father lived inside caves in New York, Jarvis went
on to receive his bachelor of arts in biology and mathematics from Hunter College
in Manhattan. In 1995, he received his Ph.D. in molecular neurobiology and animal
behavior from The Rockefeller University — one of only 52 African Americans
out of more than 4,300 biologists to earn a doctorate.
"Do something that
will have a
positive effect on the world."
In 2002, Jarvis received the National Science
Foundation's Alan T. Waterman Award, which is an esteemed honor given to promising
young researchers. The award was accompanied by a $500,000 grant to continue
his research.
Because Jarvis was encouraged by people around
him to break the cycle of drugs, poverty and violence, he expects his children
to stay focused just as he did growing up in Harlem. Unfortunately, Jarvis'
father was murdered in 1989 before he had the opportunity to see the accomplishments
the young scientist made.
Today, Jarvis and his wife, Miriam, urge their
two children to excel and accept nothing but the best. With Jarvis' contributions
to science as proof, he follows his belief that everyone should "do something
that will have a positive effect on the world."
