Joseph Elmer Hawkins, Jr.
2009; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; Volume: 30; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1097/mao.0b013e31819a8f69
ISSN1537-4505
Autores Tópico(s)Health Sciences Research and Education
ResumoWith the death of Joseph Hawkins at the age of 94, the world of auditory science has lost one of its most distinguished personalities. There are few who have brought such breadth and diversity of scholarship to this discipline as Joe Hawkins. His research, with publications spanning from 1939 to 2006, defies categorization, and he has made outstanding contributions in the many subjects that he has touched upon. He was a physiologist and morphologist, a psychoacoustician, a student of animal behavior, a biochemist, and a historian of our science. Together with S. S. Stevens, he published seminal papers in the psychoacoustics of auditory masking and on auditory evoked potentials. Some of us may consider him best-known for his work on otopathology, particularly on the ototoxicity of aminoglycoside antibiotics. Others may recall his contributions to our knowledge of the cytoarchitecture and vascular patterns of the inner ear or his work on the physiological and traumatic effects of noise that refined our view of the anatomy and pathology of the inner ear.Modified from "Sketches of Otohistory," S. Karger Basel, 2008, with permission of the publisher.Born on March 4, 1914, Joe Hawkins hailed from Waco, Texas. He was graduated from Baylor University in 1933, seeding a love for his alma mater that made him return 50years later in his retirement as Distinguished Visiting Professor, teaching undergraduate courses in anatomy. After a year of graduate study at Brown, he attended Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, leaving with a bachelor's degree in 1937. He then enrolled at Harvard University, where he was awarded the Ph.D. degree in medical sciences in 1941. Later in his career, he returned to Oxford to complete the M.A. in 1966 and D.Sc. degree in 1979. Joe Hawkins spent the war years with Hallowell Davis and Bob Galambos at Harvard, where they exposed their own ears in the very earliest experimental research on the effects of intense sound on human hearing. The studies set a benchmark for all later research on noise trauma but also left the experimenters with a considerable permanenthearing loss. He moved to Wake Forest University (1945-1946) and then to the Merck Institute for Therapeutic Research (1946-1956). It was there that he first explored the auditory and vestibular effects of the newly discovered aminoglycoside antibiotics, a line of research that became a lifelong fascination. He returned to academia in 1956 to an appointment at the Department of Otolaryngology, New York University Medical School. Visiting Hans Engström in Sweden (1961-1963), he made one of the earliest uses of the surface preparation as a superior technique for studying inner ear structure. In 1963, Joe Hawkins joined the faculty of the University of Michigan and the newly founded Kresge Hearing Research Institute upon the invitation of its director, Merle Lawrence. Here, he added novel behavioral assessments to his studies on ototoxicity in collaboration with his colleagues William Stebbins and David Moody. He also continued in his interest in noise trauma and defined the role of stria vascularis and vasoconstriction. Finally, his attention turned to auditory and vestibular changes with aging. In numerous studies on microdissections, together with Lars-Göran Johnsson, he gave us some of the finest characterizations of human pathology. Joe Hawkins became Emeritus Professor in 1984. As Emeritus, he maintained his pursuits of science and scholarship not only teaching at his alma mater Baylor but also mentoring students, fellows, and colleagues alike at Michigan. His recent years were devoted to one of his great hobbies, researching and writing on the history of otolaryngology. Joe Hawkins published extensively and served on editorial boards of scientific journals and advisory committees to professional societies and research foundations. His honors include the Award of Merit of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, the Distinguished Achievement and the Distinguished Alumnus Award of Baylor College, the Gold Medal for Basic Science of the Prosper Ménière Society, and he was awarded the medals of the cities of Pleven (Bulgaria) and Bordeaux (France). Although the breadth of his research and its depth are impressive enough, Joe Hawkins's scholarship was never limited to the laboratory. He was a student of many cultures and languages with a superb knowledge and elegant use of the English language, and beyond: lecturing in three languages, conversing in six, and reading eleven. He would modestly admit, though, that his reading of Greek, Russian, and Icelandic required the use of dictionary. Joe Hawkins died on October 6, 2008, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His wife Jane had preceded him in death in 2002 after a happy marriage of more than 60 years. He is survived by his sons Richard, Peter, James, and William, daughter Priscilla, their spouses and children. The family requests that remembrances to the memory of Joe Hawkins be made to the Merle Lawrence/Joseph Hawkins Lectureship Fund, University of Michigan, Kresge Hearing Research Institute, 1150 W Medical Center Dr, #4605 Medical Science II, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-5616. Joe Hawkins was a scholar in the broadest and best sense of the word-humanist and scientist and educator. With his scholarship, his quiet charm, dignity, and sense of humor, he has left an indelible mark on the field of auditory science. Jochen Schacht Kresge Hearing Research Institute University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.
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