Ernest Levister, MD

Doctor ‘Ernie’ Levister was born in Harlem, New York. He grew up in the Harlem River Projects, the first low rent, federally subsidized housing community in New York City. At age 5, Levister became fascinated with the nearby landmark McCombs Dam swing bridge connecting Manhattan with the Bronx which inspired him to become an engineer.

His father, a postal employee and youth baseball coach, his mother a nurse and homemaker saw education as a necessary pathway out of poverty and racial-social inequality. Young Levister was held back in the first grade. This was his wakeup call. After negotiating to attend summer school, he became focused on how things work through the application of science and math to solve problems. He became the first Black in the United States to complete the newly created national 3/2 liberal arts engineering program. He graduated with an AB in Chemistry from Lincoln University, the United States’ first degree-granting Historically Black College or University (HBCU). He was the second Black to graduate with an engineering degree from Lafayette College since 1826 and joined the 0.5% of Black engineers in America.

Levister became an instructor at the former Tuskegee Institute School of Engineering and subsequently became a production engineer for the RCA semiconductor division. He graduated from Howard University College of Medicine and completed residence programs in Internal Medicine and Cardiology. He served as a Major in the US Army Medical Corp stationed in Germany and was a Foreign Service Corps Officer in the U.S. State Department domiciled in Lagos Nigeria. He was credential to five West African nations. Levister served as a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at George Washington University School of Medicine and Eastern Virginia College of Medicine and practiced medicine in Norfolk, Virginia before moving to Southern California.

Levister recently retired as a clinical Professor of Internal and Occupational Medicine at the University of California Irvine. He has served as president of the Inland California based J.W. Vines Medical Society, a component of the National Medical Association. For 30 years, he authored a health column for the Riverside, California based Black Voice newspaper. Since 2005 Levister has served as the Vice Chairman of the Council of Advisors for the Bourns College of Engineering at the University of California Riverside. He is co-founder and current advisor to the Council for the Advancement of Black Engineers (CABE).

He is married and has 2 children.