Technology

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The week before Thanksgiving, Marshall Brain sent a final email to his colleagues at North Carolina State University. "I have just been through one of the most demoralizing, depressing, humiliating, unjust processes possible with the university," wrote the founder of HowStuffWorks.com and director of NC State's Engineering Entrepreneurs Program. Hours later, campus police found that Brain had died by suicide.

Marshall David Brain II established HowStuffWorks.com in 1998 as a personal project to explain technical topics to general audiences. The website grew into a major success that Discovery Communications acquired for $250 million in 2007. He later expanded his educational reach through books like The Engineering Book and television shows on National Geographic Channel [...]

Brain was also well-known in futurist and transhumanist circles. In 2003, his "Robotic Nation" essay, published freely on the web, predicted that widespread automation and robotics would cause a massive labor crisis by 2050, warning that up to half of American jobs could be eliminated, leading to unprecedented unemployment and social upheaval. [...]

At 4:29 am—just two and a half hours before he was discovered dead in his office, Brain sent a final email, obtained by Ars Technica, to over 30 recipients inside and outside the university. In the detailed letter, Brain disputed an announcement made by his boss, Stephen Markham, executive director of NC State's Innovation and Entrepreneurship program. Markham had told staff Brain would retire effective December 31, 2025. Brain wrote that he had instead been terminated on October 29 and was forced into retirement as a face-saving option.

The termination followed Brain's filing of ethics complaints through the university's EthicsPoint system about an employee at the university's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The complaints stemmed from an August dispute over repurposing the Engineering Entrepreneurs Program meeting space.

"What got us to this point? The short answer is that I witnessed wrongdoing on campus, and I tried to report it," Brain wrote in his email. "What came back was a sickening nuclear bomb of retaliation the likes of which could not be believed," Brain wrote in the email. He stated that the accused person "excommunicated me from my department for reporting my concerns to her."

In his email, Brain wrote that the school's head of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering later informed him the department would stop recommending students for Brain's Engineering Entrepreneurs Program. According to Brain's account, this led to disciplinary action against Brain for "unacceptable behavior."

"My career has been destroyed by multiple administrators at NCSU who united together and completely ignored the EthicsPoint System and its promises to employees," Brain wrote. "I did what the University told me to do, and then these administrators ruined my life for it."

[...] Dror Baron, an NCSU professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, wrote on X, "A professor I know died following various investigations. I know the people mentioned here, and call for a transparent and independent investigation."

So far, that investigation has not been forthcoming. University spokesperson Mick Kulikowski declined to comment to The Technician about Brain's death or the allegations. To date, the university has not issued a public statement about Brain's death.

Barry and Kashani expressed disappointment in the university's lack of public response. "It's been six days now," Kashani said at the time to the school newspaper. "There hasn't been any acknowledgment of mistakes that were made, systems that failed, no resignations, not even a call to celebrate Marshall's achievements."