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Best 20 Augmented Reality Experts

augmented reality experts - Best 20 Augmented Reality Experts

Augmented Reality has moved from sci-fi concept to real-world utility thanks to an extraordinary global community of innovators.

These include pioneers of foundational AR toolkits, open-source champions making AR more accessible, startup founders leading hardware breakthroughs, researchers pushing the boundaries of spatial computing, and creative technologists reshaping how we experience the world. Below is a curated list of the most influential AR experts active today—individuals whose groundbreaking work continues to shape the future of augmented reality.

  1. Mark Billinghurst
  2. Jérôme Etienne
  3. Blair MacIntyre
  4. Cathy Hackl
  5. Daniel Marqusee
  6. Dieter Schmalstieg
  7. Christine Perey
  8. Philip Lamb
  9. Jasmine Roberts
  10. Javier Davalos
  11. Fabian Quosdorf
  12. Jeri Ellsworth
  13. Keiichi Matsuda
  14. Daniel Beauchamp
  15. Tom Emrich
  16. Greg Madison
  17. Chi Xu
  18. Dr. Helen Papagiannis
  19. Avi Bar-Zeev
  20. John Hanke

Now, let’s delve deeper into their remarkable contributions and impact.

Mark Billinghurst

YouTube Video

Nationality: New Zealander

A pioneer of augmented reality research, Billinghurst co-developed the original ARToolKit in the early 2000s, enabling developers to overlay 3D graphics on video.

He has published over 650 papers in AR/VR and is among the most cited experts in the field. Known for innovative projects like the MagicBook (an AR-enhanced book) which won multiple awards, he has advanced natural interaction techniques combining speech, gesture, and gaze. Billinghurst continues to push the boundaries of collaborative AR and empathic computing as a professor and lab director.

Jérôme Etienne

Nationality: French

A key figure in WebAR, Jérôme is the creator of AR.js, a popular open-source library for augmented reality on the web.

A self-described “WebXR hacker,” he has made AR accessible by running it entirely in browsers, without apps. AR.js is known for its efficiency and ease of use, bringing marker-based and location AR to web developers. Formerly at DAQRI, Jérôme has also been a top contributor to three.js and written extensively on WebGL. His mission of “Making WebAR a reality” has empowered countless developers to experiment with AR using just a simple web page.

Blair MacIntyre

Blair MacIntyre - Best 20 Augmented Reality Experts

Nationality: American

An AR innovator since the 1990s, MacIntyre helped create KARMA and the “Touring Machine,” the first mobile AR systems, during his PhD at Columbia.

As a professor at Georgia Tech, he founded the Augmented Environments Lab and developed the Argon AR web browser, integrating virtual worlds like Second Life into AR. He later led Mozilla’s WebXR team (2016–2020), bringing AR to web standards, and is now Head of AR/VR Research at JPMorgan. MacIntyre’s work spans AR gaming, education, and social AR, with an emphasis on making AR creation accessible.

Cathy Hackl

The metaverse isn’t a single place. It’s a moment in time when our digital lives become more valuable than our physical lives.

Nationality: American

Often called the “Godmother of the Metaverse,” Hackl is a tech futurist and media personality leading brands into AR/VR.

As a metaverse strategist, she has guided companies like HTC and Magic Leap, and co-authored a book on AR marketing. Cathy is a sought-after speaker and tweets to over 60K followers about the convergence of AR, VR, and NFTs. She’s also the Chief Metaverse Officer at Journey, advising fashion and entertainment firms on virtual worlds. Hackl’s work bridges business and technology – she helps organizations understand how spatial computing will transform customer experiences. Her thought leadership has been featured on 60 Minutes and Bloomberg, making her a prominent public face of AR’s future.

Daniel Marqusee

Nationality: American

An independent XR developer and educator, Marqusee is respected for his thought leadership in XR UX design.

He runs a popular YouTube channel teaching design principles for AR/VR, with deep dives into interaction philosophy. Daniel also created Bezel – a rapid prototyping tool for XR interfaces – and maintains an open library of XR design patterns. As a guest lecturer for XR Bootcamp’s design fellowship, he mentors designers on spatial UI/UX. Marqusee’s emphasis on constant experimentation and sharing (he provides Notion libraries of resources) makes him a role model in the XR community, guiding creators to craft intuitive AR experiences.

Dieter Schmalstieg

Dieter Schmalstieg - Best 20 Augmented Reality Experts

Nationality: Austrian

A prolific academic, Schmalstieg has been advancing AR for over two decades and literally wrote the book on it (co-authoring “Augmented Reality: Principles and Practice” in 2016).

He founded a dedicated lab for Handheld AR in 2008 and received multiple IEEE awards for AR and VR. As a professor (formerly at TU Graz, now at Univ. of Stuttgart), he’s published 400+ papers and mentored many AR researchers. Schmalstieg’s research ranges from tracking and visualization to AR user interfaces, and he has been recognized with an IEEE Fellow honor for his impact on AR.

Christine Perey

We need open standards in AR so innovation isn’t locked behind walled gardens.

Nationality: American

An influential AR consultant and evangelist, Perey has championed enterprise AR adoption since 2006.

She founded the AR for Enterprise Alliance (AREA) to connect companies with best practices for AR in business. A strong proponent of open standards, she has led initiatives in the Open AR Cloud association and contributed to standards bodies like Khronos Group and Open Geospatial Consortium. Perey’s work focuses on making AR content interoperable across platforms and fostering a collaborative ecosystem. Her thought leadership and outreach have been instrumental in making AR viable for training, maintenance, and other enterprise use cases.

Philip Lamb

Nationality: New Zealander

A veteran open-source developer in AR, Lamb has over 20 years of AR/VR experience.

He was an original contributor to ARToolKit, helping Prof. Kato open-source it in 2003, and later served as CTO of ARToolworks. Lamb published the first AR app on the iPhone (2007) and has since architected AR systems at scale. Today he leads engineering for ARToolkitX, continuing to evolve the toolkit for modern platforms. His deep expertise in real-time computer vision, rendering, and software architecture has made him a go-to authority for AR developers worldwide.

Jasmine Roberts

Jasmine Roberts - Best 20 Augmented Reality Experts

Nationality: American

A rising star in AR engineering, Roberts played a pivotal role in developing Google ARCore’s Depth API, which allows AR apps to understand environment geometry for occlusion and physics.

She has also explored integrating generative AI with game engines (“Speaking the World into Existence” with Jaron Lanier) and worked on eye-tracking UX for PlayStation VR2. An active open-source contributor and former Microsoft, Unity, and NASA engineer, Jasmine co-founded the MIT Reality Hackathon to spur innovation. Her multifaceted work – from 3D UI design to spatial computing research – exemplifies the next generation of AR talent.

Javier Davalos

Nationality: American

The founder of Overlay MR and creator of Figmin XR, Davalos is pushing the envelope in creative AR/MR tools.

His Figmin XR platform lets users turn drawings into holograms and build interactive scenes in AR. Javier is also known for technical breakthroughs in AR hand physics and colliders – enabling realistic interaction with virtual objects – and even invented floating virtual gamepads for XR. A frequent speaker (e.g. AWE 2022) and active on Twitter, he shares insights on spatial computing and inspires other developers. Davalos demonstrates how a small startup can advance AR with constant experimentation and community engagement.

Fabian Quosdorf

Shared AR isn’t about devices seeing the same thing—it’s about people sharing the same space in new ways.

Nationality: German

An MR/AR engineer known for innovative multi-user experiences, Quosdorf has built cutting-edge mixed reality applications.

As CTO of a German XR studio, he created the world’s first cross-platform, multi-user AR experience using shared anchors across devices – a breakthrough for collaborative AR. He’s an expert in Microsoft HoloLens 2 development and volumetric video, with projects spanning interior design to enterprise training. In 2021 Fabian founded mixed.world, his own studio whose projects earned Auggie Award nominations. He also teaches MR master classes to share his knowledge. Quosdorf’s work showcases practical MR use cases and the power of precise spatial registration in AR.

Jeri Ellsworth

Jeri Ellsworth - Best 20 Augmented Reality Experts

Nationality: American

A self-taught hardware hacker turned AR entrepreneur, Ellsworth co-founded castAR in 2013 to create an affordable consumer AR headset.

After castAR, she launched Tilt Five, which makes AR glasses for tabletop gaming that bring board games to life in 3D. Ellsworth remains hands-on as CEO/CTO, inventing new holographic display techniques and supporting a developer community to build content for her platform. She’s also a YouTube maker (with projects from custom electronics to race cars) and advocates for accessible tech. With her blend of hardware expertise and creative vision, Jeri Ellsworth is pioneering AR in the gaming and hobbyist space.

Keiichi Matsuda

Nationality: British

A designer and filmmaker, Matsuda is famous for exploring the future of AR through art.

His viral short film “Hyper-Reality” depicts a chaotic AR-saturated cityscape, and his concept video “Augmented City 3D” envisions urban life fully augmented. Based in London, Matsuda’s work at the intersection of visual design and AR earned him invites to TED and the Venice Biennale. He also created Wol, a mixed reality storytelling experience. By blending speculative design with AR, Matsuda provokes discussion about the social and aesthetic implications of AR tech. His visionary concepts have influenced AR interface design and inspired many in HCI and UX fields.

Daniel Beauchamp

Play is how we learn. If AR doesn’t make you smile, you’re probably not doing it right.

Nationality: Canadian

Former Head of AR/VR at Shopify, Beauchamp became internet-famous for his whimsical AR/VR experiments.

He’s a creative coder known for projects like “Miniature Beat Saber” in AR and hand-tracking magic tricks that showcase the fun side of spatial computing. Under his leadership, Shopify built AR shopping features (like previewing products in your space) and even a VR apparel design app. Daniel actively shares demos on social media (under the handle @pushmatrix) that often go viral for their inventiveness. Now working on new AR ventures, he continues to push hand-tracking and interactions, bridging the gap between developer tinkering and usable AR experiences.

Tom Emrich

Tom Emrich - Best 20 Augmented Reality Experts

Nationality: Canadian

A prominent AR evangelist, Emrich has been on a mission to make “augmented reality for everyone.”

He was VP of Product at 8th Wall (now part of Niantic), where he helped expand WebAR capabilities, and he authors the popular AR Roundup newsletter. Tom has been an active community builder: founding events like AR Toronto and working with AWE. With over a decade in the industry, he’s often cited as a top influencer who forecasts AR trends and spotlights innovative projects. On social media and stages worldwide, Emrich advocates for wearable AR tech and shares insights into the evolving XR ecosystem, making him a go-to voice in the AR world.

Greg Madison

Nationality: French

Nicknamed the “XR Magician,” Madison is a designer and technologist at Unity Labs focusing on AR/VR interaction.

He holds several patents in XR interfaces and has created mind-bending prototypes like “Carte Blanche,” an experimental VR environment that blends physical and virtual reality. Greg’s expertise lies in spatial interaction design – he explores how users manipulate virtual objects naturally. Lately, he’s been playing with latent AI (e.g. Stable Diffusion) in XR and building productivity tools that merge 2D and 3D workflows. A frequent speaker and blogger, Madison shares his process and pushes the community toward more intuitive, human-centered XR UI.

Chi Xu

To bring AR to the masses, you have to make it invisible—not in the tech sense, but in how naturally it fits into people’s lives.

Nationality: Chinese

As founder and CEO of XREAL (formerly Nreal), Xu has made a major mark in AR hardware.

He started the company in 2017 after a stint as an engineer at NVIDIA. Under his leadership, XREAL launched the lightweight Nreal Light AR glasses and its Nebula 3D system, which impressed attendees at CES 2019–2020. XREAL went on to ship over 350,000 units of its consumer AR glasses, capturing nearly 50% of the nascent AR glasses market. In 2023–24, Chi oversaw the release of the XREAL Air 2 series, which won awards for combining a sleek form factor with advanced optics. Known for his strategic vision, he’s secured $200M+ in funding and partnerships worldwide. Chi Xu is driving AR’s move from labs to stylish consumer wearables.

Dr. Helen Papagiannis

Dr. Helen Papagiannis - Best 20 Augmented Reality Experts

Nationality: Canadian

Specializing in AR since 2005, Papagiannis is an author, speaker, and curator known for blending art and AR.

She wrote “Augmented Human” (2017), one of the first books to explore AR’s potential for enhancing human abilities. Helen has delivered two TEDx talks on AR and created interactive installations that mix the physical and digital. With a PhD in AR design, she has advised museums and startups on AR experiences. On X (as @ARstories) she shares AR news with 15k+ followers. Papagiannis is also an adjunct professor, inspiring students to push AR’s boundaries. Her work emphasizes AR as a storytelling medium and tool for creativity and education.

Avi Bar-Zeev

Nationality: American

A true AR/VR pioneer with 30+ years in the field, Bar-Zeev has had a hand in several breakthrough projects.

In the 90s he helped launch Disney’s “Aladdin” VR ride and co-founded Keyhole, which became Google Earth. At Microsoft, he co-invented the HoloLens headset in its early stages, and later at Amazon he worked on the Echo Frames AR glasses. From 2016–2019, Avi was on Apple’s secret AR team leading experience prototyping for what would become Apple Vision Pro. Now he focuses on XR ethics and is President of the XR Guild, advocating for responsible innovation. Bar-Zeev’s visionary work and public writing on AR interfaces, privacy, and safety are widely respected in the industry.

John Hanke

Nationality: American

The founder and CEO of Niantic, Hanke leads the team behind Pokémon GO and other world-scale AR games.

At Niantic (spun out of Google in 2015), he’s building a global AR platform powering not just games like Ingress and Pikmin Bloom, but also an AR developer toolkit (Lightship). Earlier, John founded Keyhole (acquired by Google to become Google Earth) and was a Google VP overseeing Maps and Street View. His vision for AR is about getting people outdoors and exploring. Under Hanke, Niantic’s apps have brought AR to tens of millions of users, and his company is now developing AR glasses and advanced location-based AR experiences. Few have done more to popularize AR globally than John Hanke.

Wrap Up

These legends represent exceptional talent, making them extremely challenging to headhunt. However, there are thousands of other highly skilled IT professionals available to hire with our help. Contact us, and we will be happy to discuss your hiring needs.

Note: We’ve dedicated significant time and effort to creating and verifying this curated list of top talent. However, if you believe a correction or addition is needed, feel free to reach out. We’ll gladly review and update the page.

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