Mark Leon

Last updated
Mark Leon
Occupation(s)Electrical Engineer, Civil Servant
Known forMCing at many FIRST robotics competitions

Mark Leon (1962 - 2018) was a former civil servant with NASA Ames Research Center. His primary work was in education and communication systems.

Contents

Early life

Mark Leon grew up in a rather rough East San Jose neighborhood, and graduated from James Lick High School in 1980. He originally began taking a slightly more academic route to life when he began hiding in the library from other high school students who were attempting to beat him up. [1]

He also attended San Jose State University [2] and won a silver medal in the 1985 Collegiate National Judo Championships. [1] He received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering.

Communications work

In the 1980s Leon was instrumental in establishing trans-Atlantic communication between American, French and English space agencies. In the 1990s he completed the first audio/video link to Antarctica. This was thought to be impossible at the time. [3]

Affiliation with FIRST Robotics

For many years Mark Leon worked as a Master of Ceremonies in many FIRST robotics competition events both on and off season. He was particularly well known for wearing a bright blue NASA coat and dying his hair the same color for these events and coined the phrase "Do the math, Save the world". [4] [1] He was widely cited as an inspiration to many high school students to build robots and impacted many career choices. He is also credited with the existence of a large number of FRC teams. [5]

Robotics Alliance Project

Beginning in 1998 Mark moved to the Robotics Alliance Project at NASA Ames. [1] This department works primarily in educational and outreach projects and was estimated in 2006 to have reached more than 100,000 middle and high school students. [3] He also ran the Ames Robotics Academy every summer. [6]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Mark Leon, Helping Kids Build a Better Robot". Archived from the original on 2009-09-30.
  2. Mark León - NASA Learning Technologies
  3. 1 2 "Spaceward Bound, Mark Leon". Archived from the original on 2016-05-20.
  4. Mark Leon
  5. "Mark Leon has left the planet". Chief Delphi. 31 December 2018. Retrieved 18 May 2020.
  6. NASA Ames Robotics Academy