Facebook's Mary Lou Jepsen is leaving the company
Mary Lou Jepsen
A top engineering executive at Facebook announced Thursday night that  she 's leaving the company to work on shrinking a powerful medical technology.
 Mary Lou Jepsen   Facebook's executive director of engineering and the head of display technologies at Oculus â the social network's much-ballyhooed virtual reality product â made public  her  upcoming departure in August during a keynote talk in Silicon Valley.
"I have decided to leave Facebook and Oculus to work on curing diseases using some new imaging technologies I've been incubating for awhile  " Jepsen  said at the Anita Borg Institute's Women of Vision awards  an organization which describes  her  as "one of the world's foremost display innovators."
Additionally   Jepsen  said  she 's joined the board of directors of a "$20 billion automotive company that's listed on the New York Stock Exchange " adding that's  she 's "really interested to participate in helping steer the transformation of transportation."
A little more than a year ago   Jepsen  left Google's secretive research laboratory to work on Facebook's Oculus headset technologies. Prior to that   she  co-founded One Laptop Per Child  an organization that aims to make inexpensive computers and give them to children in developing nations.
 Jepsen  told the crowd Thursday night that  she  wants to shrink down magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) â machines used to image brain activity and normally fill an entire hospital room â into affordable  wearable consumer devices.
To that end   she  showed an image on stage of  her  vision  which is to essentially bring all of this tech into something that looks like a ski hat.
 Jepsen  teased a few possible applications of such a device  including to help treat cancer  cardiovascular disease  mental disorders  and neurodegenerative diseases. And in a bizarre twist   she  also said  her  concept might enable people to communicate with their thoughts.
It's uncertain exactly what the shrunk-down MRI technology might be called  how it might work  how far along in development it is  or if any of the applications  she  mentioned are even possible.
"I think that's the point of what we all should all be doing "  she  said. "Trying to make the impossible  possible."
A top engineering executive at Facebook announced Thursday night that  she 's leaving the company to work on shrinking a powerful medical technology.
  [TGT] Facebook's executive director of engineering and the head of display technologies at Oculus â the social network's much-ballyhooed virtual reality product â made public  her  upcoming departure in August during a keynote talk in Silicon Valley.
"I have decided to leave Facebook and Oculus to work on curing diseases using some new imaging technologies I've been incubating for awhile  "  [TGT] said at the Anita Borg Institute's Women of Vision awards  an organization which describes  her  as "one of the world's foremost display innovators."
Additionally    [TGT] said  she 's joined the board of directors of a "$20 billion automotive company that's listed on the New York Stock Exchange " adding that's  she 's "really interested to participate in helping steer the transformation of transportation."
A little more than a year ago    [TGT] left Google's secretive research laboratory to work on Facebook's Oculus headset technologies. Prior to that   she  co-founded One Laptop Per Child  an organization that aims to make inexpensive computers and give them to children in developing nations.
  [TGT] told the crowd Thursday night that   [TGT]   wants to shrink down magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) â machines used to image brain activity and normally fill an entire hospital room â into affordable  wearable consumer devices.
To that end   she  showed an image on stage of  her  vision  which is to essentially bring all of this tech into something that looks like a ski hat.
  [TGT] teased a few possible applications of such a device  including to help treat cancer  cardiovascular disease  mental disorders  and neurodegenerative diseases. And in a bizarre twist   she  also said  her  concept might enable people to communicate with their thoughts.
It's uncertain exactly what the shrunk-down MRI technology might be called  how it might work  how far along in development it is  or if any of the applications  she  mentioned are even possible.
"I think that's the point of what we all should all be doing "  she  said. "Trying to make the impossible  possible."