Joseph E. Hawkins, Jr.
March 4, 1914 - October 6, 2008
With 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.
Born on March 4th, 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 50 years later
in his retirement as Distinguished Visiting Professor, teaching
undergraduate courses in anatomy. Following 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
permanent hearing 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 life-long fascination. He returned to academia in 1956 to an appointment
at the Department of Otolaryngology, New York University Medical School.
Visiting Hans Engstr�m 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 micro-dissections, together with
Lars-G�ran 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 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 Meni�re Society,
and he was awarded the medals of the cities of Pleven (Bulgaria) and
Bordeaux (France).
While 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 6th, 2008 in Ann
Arbor, Michigan. His wife Jane had preceded him in death in 2002 after a
happy marriage of over 60 years. He is survived by his sons Richard, Peter,
James, 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 West Medical Center Drive, #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.
Submitted by Jochen Schacht, Kresge Hearing Research Institute,
University of Michigan.
[Modified from "Sketches of Otohistory", S. Karger Basel, 2008, with
permission of the publisher.]