Carolina Cruz-Neira



Most Recent Affiliation(s):


  • University of Central Florida

Other Affiliation(s):


  • University of Arkansas at Little Rock
  • University of Illinois at Chicago

Bio:

  • SIGGRAPH 2022

    Carolina Cruz-Neira is a pioneer in virtual reality (VR), and also an engineer, researcher, designer and educator. She invented the CAVE immersive virtual environment that has become the standard standard for rear projection-based Virtual Reality systems. She has also advanced the field of VR as a professor at many universities, including Iowa State University, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and she is currently an Agere Chair Professor at University of Central Florida. Carolina has shaped the direction of VR in many ways, including through her research, advocacy, and her many students. Carolina is a member of the National Academy of engineering.

    SIGGRAPH 1998

    Dr. Carolina Cruz Neira is a Litton Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Associate Director of the Iowa Center for Emerging Manufacturing Technology, both at Iowa State University.

    Dr Cruz’s main research area is on the integration of virtual reality interfaces, high-speed networks and high-performance computing engines for the real-time visualization of and interaction with scientific and engineering applications. Her work focuses on the development of software tools to support virtual reality application development, such as efficient multi-processing methods, distributed programming environments, immersive interfaces, and hardware-independent application development environments. She is currently performing collaborative research with scientists and engineers in places such as the Cornell Theory Center, John Deere Corporation, Rockwell International Corporation, and Shell Oil.

    Dr. Cruz obtained a PhD from the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago in May of 1995. Her PhD research involved the design and implementation of the CAVE virtual reality system and the development of paradigms to integrate high performance computing and communications with the CAVE for applications in computational science and engineering. She has consulted for IBM Wall Street, the Chicago Board of Trade, the National Center for Supercomputing Application Argonne National Laboratory, Engineering Animation Inc., Allied Domeq, and MechDyne Corp. She received her Master’s degree at EVL and a Cum Laude bachelor’s in Systems Engineering at the Universidad Metropolitana in Caracas, Venezuela.  

    SIGGRAPH 1997

    Dr. Carolina Cruz-Neira is a Litton Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and an Associate Scientist at the Iowa Center for Emerging Manufacturing Technology, both at Iowa State University. Dr. Cruz obtained a PhD from the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago in May of 1995. Her PhD research involved the design and implementation of the CAVE virtual reality system and the development of paradigms to integrate high performance computing and communications with the CAVE for applications in computational science and engineering. She has consulted for the IBM Wall Street, the Chicago Board of Trade, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and Argonne National Laboratory. She received her Master’s degree at EVL and a bachelors in Systems Engineering at the Universidad Metropolitana in Caracas, Venezuela.

    Dr. Cruz’s main research area is on the integration of virtual reality interfaces, high-speed networks and high-performance computing engines for the real-time steering of distributed simulations in science and engineering. She is currently performing collaborative research with scientists and engineers at the Cornell Theory Center, Argonne National Laboratories, John Deere Corporation, and Rockwell International Corporation.

    Dr. Cruz grew up in Alicante, Spain, where she started studying classical ballet dancing at the Music Conservatory of Alicante at the age of 5. She moved to Venezuela in 1981 to pursue her undergraduate degree and to continue her dance education as well. Before discovering virtual reality, she was part of several dance companies and performed in theaters in Spain and Venezuela. 

    SIGGRAPH 1993

    Carolina Cruz-Neira is a PhD student at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her PhD research involves the design and implementation of the CAVE, a surround-screen projection-based virtual reality system. She is developing paradigms to integrate computationally intensive applications in the CAVE environment. She has had summer internships with IBM Wall Street and the Chicago Board of Trade. Prior to coming to EVL, Cruz-Neira worked as a researcher at Teleprovenca, a large Venezuelan computer systems company, coordinating several projects in computer graphics and computer interfaces. She received her Master’s degree in computer science at EVL at the University of Illinois at Chicago and her undergraduate degree in Systems Engineering at the Universidad Metropolitana in Caracas, Venezuela.  

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