Mark Rober
Early life and education
Rober was raised in Brea, California, the youngest of three siblings. He graduated from Brea Olinda High School in 1998. He became interested in engineering at a young age, making a pair of goggles that helped avoid eye irritation while cutting onions. Rober graduated from Brigham Young University (BYU) in 2004 with a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering. He later earned a Master of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of Southern California (USC) in 2014.
Early career
Rober joined NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in 2004. He worked there for nine years, seven of which were spent working on the Curiosity rover), which is now on Mars. He designed and delivered hardware on several JPL missions, including AMT, GRAIL, SMAP, and Mars Science Laboratory. While at NASA, Rober was one of the primary architects for "JPL Wired", which was a comprehensive knowledge capture wiki. He published a case study about applying wiki technology in a high-tech organization to develop an "Intrapedia" for the capture of corporate knowledge.
Science communication
While at NASA, Rober began making viral videos. His videos cover a wide variety of topics, sparking ideas for April Fools' Day pranks and teaching about beating an escape room and filming primates in zoos non-invasively. He also advocates for science in many of his videos.
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