Erich Jarvis, PhDOn Monday, September 21, 2015, Dr. Erich Jarvis, Associate Professor of Neurobiology at Duke University School of Medicine and Howard
Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, delivered the third annual Sharon
Silbiger, MD Memorial Lecture entitled “Surviving as an Underrepresented
Scientist in a Majority World.”
Dr. Jarvis
investigates the neurobiology of learned vocal communication in the animals with this ability (5% of mammals and three groups of songbirds),
as a model for the study of how the brain generates, perceives, and learns
complex behaviors such as spoken language. His research pecifically seeks to determine
the molecular mechanisms that construct, modify, and maintain neural circuits
for vocal learning and then engineer brain circuits to repair and enhance those
behaviors. Ultimately, he hopes his research might have medical benefits such
as helping to restore speech in people who have suffered damage to the region
of the brain that controls speech.
Left to right: Alan Gaynor, Frank Leiber, Howard Londner, Laurie Silbiger, Jonah Gaynor, Erich Jarvis, Brian Rothschild, Julian Rothschild, Ellen Leiber
Born in the Bronx
and raised in Harlem, Dr. Jarvis overcame numerous hardships—including his
parents’ divorce and his father’s decline into drug addiction, homelessness,
and eventual murder—to become an award-winning
neurobiologist and tenured professor at Duke University. Along the way, he became an accomplished dancer, attending the High School of Performing Arts in New York City and being invited to audition for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and credited
part of his scientific success to this endeavor. “[Dancing and science] both require discipline, creativity, hard work.
Neither of these is a nine-to-five job, and you have to accept a lot of failure
before you have any success,” he said.
Dr. Jarvis’s journey, which he shared throughout
the lecture, was marked with challenges that included misguided and sometimes acrimonious comments from colleagues, academic culture shock, and an overall feeling
that he was “less than” due to his African American heritage. “The color
of my skin and gender, like for anybody, is either a disadvantage or an
advantage. It’s rarely neutral,” he said. “The only way to overcome these
feelings of ‘less than’ is to be successful at something.”
Left to right: Victor Schuster, Erich Jarvis, and Sandra MasurEarly on in his career, as an undergraduate student at Hunter College with a bachelor's degree and six
papers published on bacterial molecular genetics in Rivka Rudner's lab, Dr.
Jarvis began to realize that achievement had a way of eliminating feelings of
inferiority. This, in addition to encouragement from his mother and
grandparents, inspired him to leverage his talent with the opportunities
available to him as an underrepresented scientist. He published nine
more papers as a graduate student and postdoctoral fellow at Rockefeller
University, earned a tenured faculty position at Duke University, and
received numerous honors including the Alan T. Waterman Award, the National
Science Foundation’s for young investigators who have made a significant
discovery/impact in science, the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, and an HHMI
Investigator Award. He credited his significant scientific accomplishments to
his willingness to take risks, as well as his commitment to working with
individuals throughout the research spectrum. “Having people from various
backgrounds brought on a more diverse way of thinking, more different ways of
tackling a problem,” said Dr. Jarvis. “Sometimes
you have to reach beyond your own closest relatives to figure out how things work,
and jump beyond your own familiarity to do good science.”
Additionally, Dr. Jarvis encouraged audience members to engage
in mentoring—“Statistically, women and minorities seek out mentors at a lower
rate. We have to change that,” he said—and to help cure society’s racial
diseases by being the best scientists possible and leading by example.
Sharon Silbiger, MDDr. Sharon Silbiger, Professor of Medicine and Associate
Chair of Medicine for Undergraduate Education, passed away September 6, 2012
after a long battle with chondrosarcoma. She was an outstanding nephrologist
and active investigator on the role of gender in renal disease progression.
Before her appointment to the Associate Chair position, she was House Staff
Program Director for the Department of Medicine for nearly a decade.
Nationally, Dr. Silbiger was immediate past-president of Women in Nephrology, a
standing committee of the American Society of Nephrology (where she was a vocal
proponent of gender equity in the organization), founding Vice Chair of the ASN
Workforce Committee, a member of the ASN Board of Advisors, and as a member of
the ASN Task Force on Increasing Interest in Nephrology Careers. (more)
The Sharon Silbiger, M.D. Fund was established in her memory
and supports this annual lectureship in the Department of Medicine.
"Sharon was a strong advocate for diversity in academic
medicine. For all of these reasons, Dr. Jarvis's address is a worthy tribute to
Dr. Silbiger and the principles for which she stood," said Dr. Victor
Schuster, Senior Vice Dean at Einstein and host of the lecture.
Dr. Schuster also acknowledged Ms. Grisel Vazguez, Administrator to the Chair of the Department of Medicine, for coordinating this year's seamlessly executed event.
Posted September 28, 2015
