Mark Parsons

Executive Director & Founder

Mark is an entrepreneur, artist, educator, and technologist who founded New Bedford Research & Robotics (NBRR) in 2022. He advises startups and sits on industrial and educational advisory boards, including a 2019 appointment by the US Department of State as a US Speaker on Creativity, Innovation and Technology. As an artist, Mark has numerous commissions, museum and gallery exhibitions and has lectured internationally. His 2016 TEDx talk “Making a Thing. Discovering a Space” underscores how creativity and technology can be agents that empower people and bring communities together.

Mark previously served as Founder of NYC’s Consortium for Research & Robotics, Director of Production Technologies at Pratt Institute Architecture, and a Director of NYSED’s STEP program.  

After graduating from UMass Dartmouth in 1992, he sailed 3 years and 30,000 miles around the globe on a 40-foot sailboat he rebuilt then returned to working as a carpenter in New Bedford before pursuing a graduate degree from Cornell University and heading to New York City. After 24 years in Brooklyn, he is now home in New Bedford again.