Grant Imahara, Engineer and Host of Mythbusters, Dead at 49

Grant Masaru Imahara, host of Mythbusters, died on July 13, 2020 of a brain aneurysm.  One thing I loved about him  was that not only was he a handsome and affable TV host, he was a working engineer and an incredibly good one too.  He started for George Lucas’s Industrial Light and Magic special effects house on culturally impactful movies, including the Star Wars prequel trilogy, and the Matrix series.  He was a well known robot builder, creating the combat robot Deadblow, and even wrote a book about building battle robots.  He consulted for Disney Imagineering and was an author on an IEEE paper about that work.  Grant Imahara was generous and good lucking enough to volunteer in a bachelor auction.   As a working Asian American engineer,  I felt that he stood out as an example that being an engineer doesn’t mean your options are limited.  I can only hope to be so productive and well rounded as he was!

Grant Imahara was 49, and leaves behind his fiance Jennifer Newman.