Studying the science of communication Everyone from “NOVA” to the New York Times called after Erich Jarvis won the prestigious Alan T. Waterman Award, the National Science Foundation’s highest honor for a young scientist or engineer. Reporters asked Jarvis, an assistant professor in neurobiology, about his pioneering research on the brain systems of songbirds, work that may change how scientists think about language in humans. Like many Duke researchers, Jarvis employs new techniques and an interdisciplinary approach, creating gene chips to analyze the DNA of zebra finches and probing the molecular pathways that guide vocal communication. As this article in People magazine noted, his own pathway to Duke was itself remarkable.