Mark Leon is a civil servant with NASA Ames Research Center. His primary work is in education and communication systems.

Early life

Mark Leon grew up in a rather rough East San Jose neighborhood. 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.

He also attended San Jose State University and won a silver medal in the 1985 Collegiate National Judo

Judo

is a modern martial art and combat sport created in Japan in 1882 by Jigoro Kano. Its most prominent feature is its competitive element, where the object is to either throw or takedown one's opponent to the ground, immobilize or otherwise subdue one's opponent with a grappling maneuver, or force an...

 Championships He received his Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering.

Communications Work

In the 1980s Mark 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 feat was thought to be impossible at that time.

Affiliation with FIRST Robotics

For the past several years Mark Leon has worked as a Master of Ceremonies in many FIRST robotics competition

FIRST Robotics Competition

The FIRST Robotics Competition is an international high school robotics competition organized by FIRST. Each year, teams of high school students compete to build robots weighing up to , not including battery and bumpers, that can complete a task, which changes every year...

events both on and off season. He is particularly well known for wearing a bright blue NASA coat and dying his hair the same color for these events.

Robotics Alliance Project

Beginning in 1998 Mark moved to the Robotics Alliance Project at NASA Ames. 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. He also runs the Ames Robotics Academy every summer