Hill Harper isn't a doctor, but he throws around medical jargon with effortless enthusiasm. He's versed in the splatter patterns of slashed arteries and he understands the implications of a knife wound to the sternocleidomastoid muscle. While countless thespians have been worried about the daunting chore of making medical lingo accessible to a wide audience, the "CSI: NY" actor is up to the task.

"As the forensic pathologist, I say all of these very large, difficult terms and it's a challenge, like doing Shakespeare," Harper enthuses. "There's got to be a rhythm to it and it's got to make sense. Finally I get to play a character where my educational background has an absolutely positive effect."

At 31-years-old, Harper has been one of television's most reliable co-stars, if one of the medium's most unlucky performers. Since 2000, his small screen credits have included the well-regarded, but short-lived dramas "City of Angels," "The Court" and last season's "The Handler." He acted under the direction of Spike Lee in films like "He Got Game" and under the shadow of Shaquille O'Neal in "Steel" and earned an Independent Spirit Award for the feature "The Visit," all the while just missing breakout success.

Harper is also a graduate of Brown University who embarked on the earliest stages of his career while pursuing dual graduate degrees in law and public administration at Harvard. After he graduated from Harvard Law ("magna cum laude," he sounds almost embarrassed to admit), he was working the late shift at a 24-hour diner and rushing off, without sleep, to auditions each morning, constantly aware that his high-achieving classmates were making six figures at Boston or New York firms.

"This is something that was handed down to me, that I really believe and am committed to: If ever you're making a decision solely based upon money, you're making the wrong decision," he says, justifying his experiences as an over-schooled busboy.

What Harper couldn't have foreseen is that his thirst for higher education would often prove to be a liability, rather than a boon.

"Unfortunately, there aren't tons of roles written for young, black, highly educated men," he says. "There are plenty of roles that are written a little bit more stereotypically about young black men who never finish high school and have made millions in hip hop or in the drug trade or some other idea of what black men are. I know a whole lot more guys like me than I know the guys that are represented by-in-large in film and television."

Harper, who admits that he had never watched any of the "CSI" franchises before taking his "CSI: NY" gig as Dr. Sheldon Hawkes, quickly dove into researching his new role. The actor, who describes himself as an "experience-monger," says that the latest show in the popular series will stand apart because of the ways in which the events of Sept. 11, 2001 have shaped the real-life New York crime scene investigators.

"I was interviewing a medical examiner in New York and he said they had to piece 27,000 body parts into individual baggies from Ground Zero and then try to put these parts together like a puzzle, so they could give a leg or a thumb to a family so they can have a burial," Harper recounts with a hushed tone. "It's like working in a situation where there's always some measure of post-traumatic stress disorder."

In an ensemble fronted by Gary Sinise and Melina Kanakaredes, with reliable veterans like Eddie Cahill and Vanessa Ferlito providing support, some "CSI: NY" cast members may worry about screentime, but Harper has reason to be relaxed.

"The best thing about my job is that on 'CSI,' somebody's gotta die," he chuckles. "And if somebody dies, I'm the only one licensed to look them over. I'm not a morbid person, but I just figure that the more people die the better."

Although he's received good reviews for films that barely anybody saw and television shows that often failed to complete a season, Harper is hopeful that he's chosen a program that people will flock to and enjoy.

"You don't want to act in a vacuum," he says. "Acting is the one art that exists that you need an audience to actually be doing it. I can't get a box and stand on the corner of Fairfax and Melrose and start doing monologues and say that I'm acting. If no one's actually hearing the words and taking it in, I'm not acting. I'm not presenting a character. It requires an audience."

Audiences can catch Harper and the rest of the "CSI: NY" team when the drama premieres on Wednesday, Sept. 22 at 10 p.m. ET on CBS.