Barry Silverstein ’84 to help lead the future of AR/VR at URochester

Barry Silverstein ’84 believes that in the not-too-distant future, the main way people interact with computers on a daily basis will be through augmented reality. After serving as the senior director of optics and display research at Meta Reality Labs Research since 2017, the University of Rochester optics alumnus says academia has a critical role to play in guiding that future and that there is no better university to lead it than his alma mater.

“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.”

Silverstein will pursue that vision after stepping down from Meta to serve as director of URochester’s Center for Extended Reality (CXR), a transdisciplinary center focused on artificial intelligence, augmented reality, virtual reality, and everything in between. Established over the summer as part of Boundless Possibility, the University’s 2030 strategic plan, CXR will serve as a hub to connect the University’s experts in optics, computing, data science, neuroscience, education, the humanities, and other related fields to focus on advancing augmented and virtual reality.

A distinguished career in optics

Silverstein says that his optics education at URochester was rigorous and, like many of his classmates, he found it challenging but well worth the effort. While the major gave him the technical skills to secure a good job, he says it provided him more than that.

“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.”

Upon graduating in 1984, he began a 28-year career at Eastman Kodak Company, where he worked on everything from space-based optical systems to 3D digital cinema projectors. As he climbed the company ranks, he said he kept his skills sharp by staying connected with the Institute of Optics and auditing classes from time to time.

In 2013, he moved to IMAX as senior director of research and development hardware, where he led a focused team of PhD scientists, engineers, designers, and technicians to design, develop, and commercialize IMAX’s premier laser projection system. Utilizing a novel optical system, the team created the IMAX Prismless Laser Projector, delivering unprecedented image quality with high resolution, brightness, and contrast required for IMAX’s premier theatrical presentation. The technical achievement was an Oscar-worthy feat, eventually earning Silverstein and his colleagues a Scientific and Engineering Award from the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in 2024.

Silverstein’s path led to Meta in 2017, transitioning from making the world’s largest projection systems to the world’s smallest, where he oversaw multiple teams researching and developing optical, display, and photonic technology for head-mounted AR and VR headsets and worked to make that technology viable for commercialization. His connection to URochester remained strong and Meta Reality Labs helped fund study numerous research projects at the University in optics and beyond.

“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.”

Advancing URochester’s leadership on extended reality

Silverstein is excited for the shift to academia: “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.”

He envisions CXR as a uniting force that brings forerunners in a wide range of disciplines to focus on a single problem. And he has plenty of help lined up.

The co-leads who developed the proposal for CXR include Nick Vamivakas, the Marie C. Wilson and Joseph C. Wilson Professor of Optical Physics; Professor Duje Tadin from the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences; Meg Moody, director of Studio X; Mujdat Cetin, the Robin and Tim Wentworth Director of the Goergen Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence; Jannick Rolland, the Brian J. Thompson Professor of Optical Engineering; Susana Marcos, the David R. Williams Director of the Center for Visual Science; and Associate Professor Benjamin Suarez-Jimenez from the Department of Neuroscience.

But Silverstein is already looking at ways to expand that scope and expertise, and he is excited by the possibility of combining URochester’s strengths in science, technology, medicine, music, and the humanities. He notes that technological change affects society as a whole and that it is important to involve both technical developers and those who can understand the social implications of technology’s applications.

“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.”