Mark Rober

Mark Rober has a son with autism and has advocated for autism awareness. In 2021, he co-hosted a livestream with Jimmy Kimmel that raised support for NEXT for AUTISM.

Accounts of Rober's marital status differ. One account says he was previously married and divorced in 2021, while another lists Lisa Nicole Earl as his spouse and says he has three children.

Rober was raised in Brea, California, and graduated from Brea Olinda High School in 1998. He developed an interest in engineering at a young age, including by making goggles designed to prevent eye irritation while cutting onions.

He earned a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from Brigham Young University in 2004 and later received a Master of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of Southern California in 2014.

Rober joined NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2004 and worked there for nine years. He spent seven years working on the Curiosity rover and designed or delivered hardware for missions and projects including Advanced Modeling Technology, GRAIL, SMAP, and the Mars Science Laboratory.

At JPL, Rober was one of the primary architects of JPL Wired, a knowledge-capture wiki. He also co-authored a case study about using an internal wiki, described as an "Intrapedia," to preserve organizational knowledge in a high-technology environment.

From 2015 to early 2020, he worked at Apple as a product designer in the company's Special Projects Group. His work there included virtual-reality projects connected with self-driving cars, and he authored patents involving that technology.

While working at NASA, Rober began producing videos that explained science through experiments, inventions, pranks, and engineering challenges. His first YouTube video, uploaded in October 2011, showed a Halloween costume using two iPads to create the illusion of a hole through his torso. The video received 1.5 million views in one day and became the basis for his first major business venture.

In 2012, he launched Digital Dudz, a company that developed app-integrated Halloween costumes based on the illusion. The company expanded into retail stores and was sold to the British costume company Morphsuits in 2013.

Rober became especially widely known for his glitter-bomb package traps, beginning with a 2018 video designed to deter parcel thieves. He later produced follow-ups, including a 2019 version featuring Macaulay Culkin. In a later project, he collaborated with Jim Browning, Scammer Payback, and government authorities to use glitter-bomb packages in efforts against call-center scams.

His other popular projects have included a backyard obstacle course designed to deter squirrels from reaching bird feeders. He has also delivered TEDx talks, appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, guest-hosted the program, and starred with Jimmy Kimmel in the Discovery series Revengineers.

Rober founded CrunchLabs in 2022. The educational technology company creates hands-on STEM learning experiences, including subscription Build Boxes containing construction projects and engineering challenges for children.

His work through CrunchLabs has extended his science-communication approach beyond video. The company has also been associated with television projects including Mark Rober's CrunchLabs, for which Rober has served as a producer and creator.

Rober has worked with MrBeast on large collaborative fundraising projects. In 2019, they launched #TeamTrees with the Arbor Day Foundation, and in 2021 they created #TeamSeas with The Ocean Cleanup and the Ocean Conservancy to address marine debris.

Rober and MrBeast later launched Team Water, a follow-up campaign focused on clean-water projects. Rober has also promoted access to STEM education through Class CrunchLabs, an initiative providing free science lessons, experiments, and teacher training to schools.

Rober has won Streamy Awards for science and engineering, learning and education, nonprofit work, and creator collaborations. He received the Webby Award for Film & Video Person of the Year and was named STEM Personality of the Year by the Institution of Engineering and Technology.

The Institution of Engineering and Technology later made him an Honorary Fellow. He delivered the 2023 commencement address at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received the FIRST Robotics Competition Founder's Award in 2024 for expanding access to STEM education and robotics programs.