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JOSEPH ELMER HAWKINS, Jr.:
SCIENTIST, SCHOLAR, HISTORIAN
1914 - 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 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 micro-dissections, 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 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
Menière 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.]
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