Facebook would have to fill a hole in its virtual reality division as Mary Lou Jepsen, head of display technology for Oculus Virtual Reality (VR) Division, has announced her plans to leave the company in August. Jepsen is planning to work towards developing MRI technology for the health sector.

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Jepsen's departure is likely to have an impact on Facebook's efforts to capture the growing VR market. The social media company bought Oculus in 2014 for $2 billion, to give a fillip to its VR ambitions. Oculus recently shuffled its management team. The restructuring saw founder and COO Laird Malamed step down to make place for Fitbit COO Hans Hartmann.

Jepsen announced her plans at Women of Vision awards ceremony at the Anita Borg Institute. She revealed that she is planning to focus on creating wearable MRI machines. Jepsen disclosed that she had been incubating the idea for a long time and is excited to start working on her new venture. Jepsen was hired by Facebook from the advanced-projects lab at Google.

Jepsen's move has been confirmed by Oculus. "We wish Mary Lou all the best as she pursues her passion to change the world with next-generation medical technologies," the company stated in a statement. "We're very excited to see what she invents next."

While Virtual Reality is likely to become one of the hottest trends, Facebook does not expect it to be a major revenue driver for the company in 2016. Speaking at a press conference following its first quarter earnings, Facebook said that VR is a long term bet. Mark Zuckerberg, Founder of Facebook, said, "This is early and it's going to take a long time. There's a lot of hype around this." 

TagsMary Lou Jepsen, Facebook, Oculus, FitBit, Mark Zuckerberg