![]() He was homeless when I was in high school, living in caves in upstate New York to figure out how humans invented civilization. I never saw him as a father but as a friend. He was abusive to my mother and to us, his kids, which is why my mother left. He finished high school at 15, but dropped out of college and got into drugs. Jarvis was also influenced by his father, James Jarvis, who had wanted to become a scientist in the 1960s. Of all the things I enjoyed, I felt that as a scientist I had a higher probability of impacting society than as a dancer,” he says. “I was thinking, ‘What do I want to do for the rest of my life that would make this world a better place?’ because that is what my mother taught me, to do something that has a good impact on society. In high school, Jarvis enjoyed science, and biology in particular. I think that I take a more creative, collaborative, and inclusive approach than some of my colleagues do.” That training has influenced who I am now as a scientist. We were being trained in arts and academics, but on top of that, on how to be a person-to think creatively and to be good citizens and neighbors rather than to compete with one another. I realize now how unusual that school was. I thought maybe I had dance talent, so I auditioned for the High School of the Performing Arts and got in. I began to imitate John Travolta and was winning dance contests in Connecticut where I lived with my mother, Valeria McCall. Right before I entered high school, the movie Saturday Night Fever came out. “Most of my family were singers and musicians and we were expected to become musicians and singers as well. Jarvis was born in Harlem and grew up in the Bronx and Queens. ![]() Here, he discusses how Saturday Night Fever kick-started his dance career, how his family inspired his scientific pursuits, and why he chose to study the brain.Ĭitizen of the world. In college, he chose a career in science over one in dance in graduate school, Jarvis began pioneering work to understand the mechanisms of how songbirds learn to sing, and has since spearheaded evolutionary and sequencing studies of bird species while continuing to research the genetics and neuronal circuitry of vocal communication. He had scholarships to study at the Joffrey Ballet and the Alvin Ailey schools and still continues to dance and perform. I guess I still think that way,” says Jarvis. At the High School of the Performing Arts in NYC, Jarvis majored in ballet because “if you learn something complex, it will make everything easier. Jarvis is also looking forward to opportunities to perform with one of the city’s many dance troupes. If I can do that, I will bring all of my passions together.” “I’m now considering studying the neurobiology of dance in parrots and humans. ![]() What I am not looking forward to is the car noise, the pollution, and the cold weather,” says the native New Yorker. And I am looking forward to being closer to my family. I am looking forward to that scientific environment, which is hard to find. The philosophy there is if there is a high probability of an experiment working, then you’re not doing the right experiment, and if it has a high probability of failure, then it could make a big impact in science. “Rockefeller was a place where I had a lot of scientific freedom. ![]() Jarvis was trained in molecular biology in Rivka Rudner’s lab at Hunter and began his neuroscience career at Rockefeller University in Fernando Nottebohm’s group, using songbird communication as a model system to dissect the molecular biology of speech and vocal learning in the brain.
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