Erich Jarvis: Surviving and thriving as an under-represented minority scientist in a majority environment

Erich Jarvis is a professor at The Rockefeller University. He leads a team of researchers who study the neurobiology of vocal learning, a critical behavioral substrate for spoken language. Dr. Jarvis has examined vocal learning in songbirds, parrots, and hummingbirds. Like humans, these bird groups have the ability to learn new sounds and pass on their vocal repertoires culturally, from one generation to the next. Jarvis focuses on the brain pathways involved in the perception and production of learned vocalizations and the development of brain circuits for vocal learning. He and his research colleagues are studying the brain pathways of songbirds as a model to give bold new insight into how these animals produce and use vocal communication.

Before deciding on a career in science, Dr. Jarvis was invited to audition for the prestigious Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre in Harlem. He later graduated from Hunter College in New York City with a bachelor’s degree in Biology and Mathematics and then earned his Ph.D. Neurobiology and Animal Behavior from Rockefeller University.  At Rockefeller, he worked in lab of Fernando Nottebohm, who pioneered research on the neurobiology of song-learning in birds as a model for understanding neural plasticity in the adult brain.

In 2002, the National Science Foundation awarded Jarvis its highest honor for a young researcher, the Alan T. Waterman Award. In 2005 he was awarded the National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Award providing funding for five years to researchers pursuing innovative approaches to biomedical research. In 2008 Dr. Jarvis was selected to the prestigious position of Investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.