Dr. Marlin Mickle, one of the University of Pittsburgh's most prolific innovators, died suddenly a year ago on April 14, 2015. This is an extended version of a memorial written shortly after his death.
Marlin Mickle
In the 1940s coal mining town of Windber, PA, a precocious tyke named Marlin Mickle took things apart, put them together and made new ones the way most kids shot marbles, spun tops and walked yoyos on the sidewalk. By the time he was five, Marlin had a toolbox and typewriter of his own.
At about the age of twelve, Marlin came upon a discarded, crystal set. Crystal sets were rudimentary radio receivers that caught broadcast waves and tapped their electromagnetic power to listen to radio programs through an earphone — using the radio wave itself for electricity.
Despite his crystal set’s derelict condition, the innately ingenious Marlin got it to work. Although he didn’t understand the theory behind his crystal set then, eventually radio waves would become the motivating force of his life.
After high school Marlin joined the Air Force in hopes of later going to college. Auspiciously, the Air Force made him an airborne radar technician.
Following the Air Force, Marlin enrolled at Pitt, Johnstown for electrical engineering under the GI Bill. He went on to earn his Masters and PhD at Pitt’s Oakland campus.
During his 50-year career at Pitt, Marlin focused on the ability of a radio wave to serve dual roles as both a pure electromagnetic signal as well as a power source to process the signal. Exploiting this phenomenon, he developed a revolutionary technology known as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tagging. The technology comprises tiny antennas that return a unique radio signal when activated by specific input waves.
Taking the double-duty idea to another level, Marlin extended his work to using the metal conductors in computer circuits as antennas. He went so far as to develop methods of harvesting stray radio waves for their electrical power in remote locations.
Always the visionary, in a 2008 interview he spoke exuberantly about future forms of wireless energy stored in ways neither he nor anyone else could yet imagine. Not given to idle speculation, five years later, in 2013, Marlin and colleagues were awarded a patent centered on using antennas to provide a pool of energy for a computer network.
In our last interview, Marlin brought me up to date on a new phenomenon called the Internet of Things for which I was writing a story and he was preparing a symposium. When I thanked him for his kindness he said, “It’s my pleasure, Tom. It’s always fun to talk to you.” I was flattered by his comment and awestruck his unquenchable enthusiasm for new technology. After forty patents and fifty years of innovation, Professor Marlin Mickle was still having fun at the farthest reaches of advanced technology.
Just four days later, when I learned of Marlin’s sudden death I found myself saddened by his passing at the same time I was heartened by my good fortune of having known this visionary of the electromagnetic spectrum who, until the very end of his life, continued to exhibit the boundless imagination and indefatigable creativity of a boy listening to his crystal radio.
It was an honor to know Marlin Mickle. Fun, too.