Eakin, Richard Marshall (1910–1999)

US zoologist. He spent his career at the University of California at Berkeley where he made major contributions to studies of the electron microscopy of photoreceptors in vertebrates and invertebrates, and was editor of several professional journals.

He was born in Florence, Colorado and did postgraduate research in Europe. While teaching at the University of California at Berkeley, he would convey his enthusiasm for science to his students by appearing in the classroom dressed as famous biologists, and lecture in the appropriate character and manner on relevant topics. These popular impersonations led to him producing and starring in his own educational films about the life and work of renowned scientists such as Darwin, Pasteur, and Mendel.