Draft:Marlon Van Cott

Marlon Van Cott (December 2, 1942 – March 15, 2008). was an American insect ecologist, science department chairman at Adolfo Camarillo High School, local volunteer, and artist.

Early Life and Education
Van Cott was born in Long Beach, California in 1942. His family later moved to Ojai, California where he attended Nordhoff High School. He graduated in 1960.

Van Cart then moved to San Diego where he completed a Bachelor of Science degree at San Diego State University. Van Cart then went on to earn a Master's Degree in Science from California State University, Northridge under Peter F. Bellinger.

Science Career
Marlon taught science for 24 years at Adolfo Camarillo High School. He earned the position of science department chairman in the 1980s. In 1984, Marlon was one of 11,000 teachers who sent in applications to the Teacher in Space Project run by NASA.

In 1986, Marlon taught the lecture portion of the new Electronic Technology class alongside Richard Freeland (who taught the lab portion) at the high school. The program was created with the idea to give young people the opportunity to learn and appreciate the growing use of electronics.

Marlon was also involved in several other parts of the high school. In 1971, Marlon served as the advisor for the California Scholarship Federation club. In 1975, Marlon served as the coach for the school's tennis teams.

Art Career
In the late 1990s, Marlon started his career in the arts. In 2005, Marlon won the Ventura Award of Merit from the Ventura College Art Department for his ink techniques. In April of 2007, Marlon's artwork was featured at the Ventura art gallery "A Celebration of Moments: a Joyful Look at the Innocence of Life" alongside Priscilla Partridge de Garcia. In July of 2007, Marlon was one of 16 artists chosen to paint the trash cans at the Harbor Village in Ventura, which was later designated as a permanent exhibit. Marlon was posthumously awarded Honorable Mention for the Painting category of the 2008 Ventura College Art Department awards.

Volunteer Work
Marlon was an avid volunteer in Ventura County, being associated with multiple organizations and receiving Camarillo's Volunteer of the Year award in 1997. Marlon volunteered with the Camarillo Health Care District, Adventures in Caring, as the Thomas Jefferson actor at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, and as president of the Men's Methodist group at the Camarillo United Methodist Church

Notable Publications
Marlon published his Master's Thesis in 1982. Titled "Competition among five species of Collembola in laboratory cultures," his work showed evidence of species competition between Entomobrya guthriei, Pseudosinella sexoculata, Sinella curviseta, Cryptopygus thermophilus, and Proisotoma schoetti. The results of his study showed that Sinella curviseta and Proisotoma schoetti were the strongest competitors and Cryptopygus thermophilus was the weakest competitor when introduced. His paper also concluded that Cryptopygus thermophilus and Proisotoma schoetti had a shorter generation time (14-15 days) when compared to Sinella curviseta (16-19 days). Through his study, Marlon increased the understanding of the interactions and reproduction of little-studied Collembola species.

His work on Collembola later went on to influence the work of Thomas Michael Smith, who published "Pairwise combinations of seven species of Collembola in culture" in 1997 for his Master's Thesis. Smith also studied under Peter F. Bellinger. Smith thanked both Van Cott and Bellinger in the acknowledgements section of his paper.