Barry Silverstein ’84 returns to URochester to guide a bold new chapter in augmented and virtual reality innovation

Rochester, New York – For decades, new technologies have arrived in waves—first with the personal computer, then the smartphone, and now a looming shift toward immersive digital experiences. For Barry Silverstein ’84, one of the industry’s most respected optics innovators, that next wave is not simply approaching; it is already forming. And he is steering his career directly into its path by returning to the University of Rochester to help guide how augmented and virtual reality evolve in the years ahead.

Silverstein, who recently stepped down from his role as senior director of optics and display research at Meta Reality Labs Research, has long believed that tools blending physical and digital perception will become the standard way people interact with computers. In his view, the change will touch nearly every part of daily life, from education and entertainment to medicine and industrial work. And he insists that higher education—particularly his alma mater—will be central in shaping how these technologies are built and used.

“The University of Rochester is uniquely equipped with the technological and humanistic pieces to make extended reality—AR and VR combined with artificial intelligence—useful, productive, and valuable for humanity,” says Silverstein. “Pulling together those pieces is something that I’ve dreamed about for more than a decade.”

That vision now takes tangible form through his appointment as director of the University’s new Center for Extended Reality (CXR), one of the most ambitious initiatives emerging from the institution’s Boundless Possibility 2030 strategic plan. CXR, launched over the summer, is designed to operate as a kind of intellectual crossroads—where optical science, data analytics, neuroscience, education research, artificial intelligence, and humanistic inquiry converge to imagine what extended reality should look like and how it should be implemented responsibly.

A Career Rooted in Optics and Reinvention

When Silverstein looks back on his early days studying optics at the University of Rochester, he remembers an experience that was demanding, often overwhelming, and ultimately transformative. His coursework wasn’t just a pathway into a high-tech career; it was a long-term investment in a way of thinking.

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“Above all, more than the individual knowledge on a specific topic, my time at the University of Rochester taught me how to learn,” says Silverstein. “Being able to get through a difficult degree like optics gave me the confidence and the methodology that I could learn anything if I needed.”

This capacity for rapid learning and reinvention became a defining thread in his professional life. After graduating in 1984, Silverstein spent nearly three decades at Eastman Kodak Company, navigating the rapidly shifting worlds of imaging and optical engineering. His work there reached across a remarkable range of fields—space-based optical systems, early forms of digital cinema projection, and other emerging technologies that required both scientific precision and imagination.

His connection to the University of Rochester never faded. Even as he advanced through Kodak’s leadership structure, he returned to the Institute of Optics to audit courses, refresh his technical fluency, and stay rooted in academic developments. It was an early hint of the role he would eventually step into—someone who moves fluidly between research and real-world application, always keeping one foot in each domain.

In 2013, he accepted a position at IMAX as the senior director of R&D hardware, spearheading the development of cutting-edge projection systems. There, he helped lead the team responsible for creating the IMAX Prismless Laser Projector, a leap forward in image clarity, brightness, and contrast that captured the industry’s attention. The achievement ultimately earned him and his colleagues a Scientific and Engineering Award from the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in 2024, a testament to the technical vision behind the project.

His next leap brought him into the center of the consumer AR/VR revolution. When he joined Meta in 2017, he shifted from building some of the largest, most powerful projection systems in the world to engineering some of the smallest—and most personal. At Meta Reality Labs, he oversaw research and development teams building optical and display technologies for head-mounted AR and VR systems. The task required inventing new approaches to miniaturization, material science, and display integration, all while pushing toward commercial viability.

“My career has constantly been transitioning back and forth from research to product,” says Silverstein. “For me, the objective has always been to research something to solve a particular problem with a customer in mind, and then to take that research and learn how to commercialize it and apply it so that it can be delivered to the customer’s hands.”

A New Era for Extended Reality at Rochester

Now, after years of developing products that influence how millions of people encounter digital information, Silverstein says he is eager to shift toward empowering other innovators.

“After helping to develop and commercialize products that have reached millions of people, what drives me now is to be able to put other people in the position to do the same.”

The Center for Extended Reality will be a key vehicle for that mission. Rather than anchoring itself in a single department, CXR is designed to be far-reaching—uniting experts across optical physics, cognitive science, computer engineering, data science, visual science, and even fields such as music, education, and ethics.

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The team involved in its creation reflects that broad scope. Contributors include prominent faculty such as Nick Vamivakas, Duje Tadin, Meg Moody, Mujdat Cetin, Jannick Rolland, Susana Marcos, and Benjamin Suarez-Jimenez, each representing distinct but interconnected areas of research. Their collective expertise ensures that CXR’s work will not simply focus on hardware and software, but also on understanding how extended reality fits into human behavior, learning processes, community interactions, and cultural life.

Silverstein sees this wide-ranging collaboration as essential. The technologies emerging today—mixed-reality headsets, spatial computing interfaces, and AI-assisted visualization tools—are not just technical breakthroughs. They are societal transformations, reshaping how people experience information and communicate across distance.

He believes the University of Rochester is uniquely positioned to lead those conversations, not only because of its scientific strength but also because of its ability to integrate the humanities and arts into technological exploration. That fusion, he says, is what will allow extended reality to reach its potential responsibly.

“Just as AR and VR technology enables people from far away to come together, I view the center as a connecting force,” says Silverstein. “Five years from now, we’ll talk using the same language and work toward the same goals. The tool set we’ll be focused on is AR/VR hardware and the bridge will be artificial intelligence.”

Building Toward a More Immersive Future

Silverstein’s new role marks both a return and an expansion—back to the institution where his scientific foundations were formed, and forward into a rapidly evolving technological landscape. His goal is not simply to advance the underlying hardware behind extended reality but to help shape an ecosystem where students, researchers, and innovators collaborate across boundaries.

In practical terms, that means developing new AR and VR technologies; exploring how they work in classrooms, medical simulations, and workplace training; understanding how perception, cognition, and ergonomics shape user experience; and examining the ethical and humanistic questions that arise as digital and physical worlds blend together.

It is a bold undertaking, but one grounded in Silverstein’s long career of navigating ambitious, interlocking projects. With CXR, he sees an opportunity not only to expand what extended reality can do but also to train the next generation of engineers, scientists, designers, and thinkers who will build and critique these tools.

In the coming years, as extended reality becomes more embedded in everyday life, the University of Rochester’s Center for Extended Reality is poised to become one of the institutions shaping that transition. And with Barry Silverstein ’84 at the helm, the effort draws on a legacy of reinvention, expertise, and the belief that technology should always be anchored by human insight and purpose.