Dr. Rolando Masís-Obando is a computational neuroscience postdoc at Johns Hopkins University. Scientifically, he is interested in how contexts (like those in VR/AR) shape the way we think and remember our day-to-day experiences. He has scanned dozens of people’s brains (and effectively read their minds) to further understand how the brain represents spaces and concepts. Given the intersection of AR/VR with neuroscience, Rolando’s interests revolve around how we can shape a future internet to be more human-centered and grounded under ethical principles.

Rolando received his PhD from Princeton University in Computational Neuroscience and his Bachelor’s from Yale University in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology. During his studies, he co-founded Shuflix with his brothers, the largest activity search engine (at the time), to help people interact with their environment in a playful alternative way while helping small businesses get more exposure. Recently, he co-founded one of the first, if not the first, hybrid academic/industry conference on the future of reality (see Neuroethics & the Future of Reality here: https://futurerealities.org/NFR2023/).

In his free time, Rolando is a filmmaker, composes for films, creates augmented reality and artificial intelligence tutorials for his YouTube channel, and does pro-bono marketing consulting for personal brands and small businesses. Rolando directed a cinematic educational video on the history of the Metaverse and its ongoing issues with privacy and agency. The video can be found here: https://youtu.be/wsJF1ugsfKI