Iowa City Darwin Day Events

Erich Jarvis is a professor and head of the Laboratory of Neurogenetics of Language at the Rockefeller University. He uses song-learning birds and other species as models to study the molecular and genetic mechanisms that underlie vocal learning, including how humans learn spoken language. He chairs the international Vertebrate Genomes Project which studies how species are genetically related and how unique characteristics evolve. Jarvis also collaborates on a project to generate a new human pangenome reference that will represent over 90% of genetic diversity.

Dr. Jarvis is the 2002 recipient of the National Science Foundation Alan T. Waterman Award and was awarded the Director’s Pioneer Award by the National Institutes of Health in 2008. He received the NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award in 2019

Charmaine Royal is a 2020 Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor. She is Professor of African & African American Studies, Biology, Global Health, and Family Medicine & Community Health at Duke University. She also has appointments in the Duke Initiative for Science & Society and the Kenan Institute for Ethics. She directs the Duke Center on Genomics, Race, Identity, Difference and the Duke Center for Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation.

Dr. Royal’s research, scholarship, and teaching are transdisciplinary and global, focusing on ethical, social, scientific, and clinical implications of genetics and genomics, particularly issues at the intersection of genetics and ‘race’. Her primary goal is to dismantle ideologies and systems of ‘race’ and racism in research, healthcare, and society. She serves on numerous domestic and international advisory committees and boards pertaining to her work.