2005 NIH Director’s Pioneer Award
From Songbird Science to Salsa Dancing
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Erich Jarvis spends his days at the Rockefeller University, New York, studying songbirds and searching for clues about the origins of language. But at least two nights a week, you won’t find this highly accomplished neurobiologist mulling over the latest neuroscience results or shooting an email to colleagues about their ongoing efforts to sequence bird genomes. He’ll be in the dance studio, practicing his latest salsa dancing moves.
In fact, before even considering a career as a scientist, Jarvis was a dancer. He danced ballet in grade school, later enrolling in New York’s High School of the Performing Arts as a dance major. Between academic classes, he spent three hours each day practicing ballet at school and, as a teen, another three hours each night practicing solos and pas de deux at the renowned Joffrey Ballet School and, later, the Alvin Ailey American Dance School. Jarvis even received an invitation as a high school senior to audition for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
