Carolina Cruz-Neira is a

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

Venezuelan Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

computer engineer, researcher, designer, educator, and a pioneer of

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), educ ...

(VR). She is known for inventing the cave automatic virtual environment (CAVE). She previously worked at Iowa State University (ISU), University of Louisiana at Lafayette (UL Lafayette), University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UA Little Rock), and she is currently an Agere Chair Professor at

University of Central Florida The University of Central Florida (UCF) is a public research university whose main campus is in unincorporated Orange County, Florida. UCF also has nine smaller regional campuses throughout central Florida. It is part of the State University ...

(UCF).

Education

Cruz-Neira graduated ''

cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

'' with a degree in

systems engineering Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design, integrate, and manage complex systems over their enterprise life cycle, life cycles. At its core, systems engineering util ...

from the

Universidad Metropolitana The Metropolitan University ( es, Universidad Metropolitana) (Unimet) is a Venezuelan university founded in 1970 by a group of entrepreneurs led by Eugenio Mendoza Goiticoa in the terrains donated by the businessman Pius Schlageter, father of ...

Caracas, Venezuela Caracas (, ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas, abbreviated as CCS, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the ...

in 1987. She earned a master's degree in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

and

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

from the

University of Illinois, Chicago The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus established under the University of Illinois sy ...

in 1991, and her PhD in 1995, working under

computer graphics Computer graphics deals with generating images with the aid of computers. Today, computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. A great de ...

researcher Thomas DeFanti.

Work

Cave automatic virtual environment

The first CAVE was invented by Carolina Cruz-Neira,

Daniel J. Sandin Daniel J. Sandin (born 1942) is an American video and computer graphics artist, designer and researcher. He is a Professor Emeritus of the School of Art & Design at University of Illinois at Chicago, and co-director of the Electronic Visualiz ...

, and

Thomas A. DeFanti Thomas Albert "Tom" DeFanti (born September 18, 1948) is an American computer graphics researcher and pioneer. His work has ranged from early computer animation, to scientific visualization, virtual reality, and grid computing. He is a distinguis ...

in 1992. For her PhD dissertation, Cruz-Neira designed and developed the CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment, its specifications, and implementation. She also designed and implemented the CAVELib software API, now a commercial product. She was the architect of the Open Source API VR Juggler, an open source virtual reality applications development framework. The CAVE is an immersive system that became the standard for rear projection-based

systems. The normal full system consists of projections screens along the front, side and floor axes, and a tracking system for the "user". Although they used the recursive acronym Cave Automatic Virtual Environment for the CAVE system, the name also refers to

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

's "Republic" and "The Allegory of the Cave" where he explored the concepts of reality and human perception. There have been a couple offshoots of the CAVE technology, including ImmersaDesk, Infinity Wall and Oblong Industries' G-speak system. The ImmersaDesk is a semi-immersive system, resembling a drafting table, while the Infinity Wall is designed to cater to an entire room of people, such as a conference room. Extending this concept, G-speak supports gestural input from multiple-users and multiple-devices on and expandable array of monitors.

Academia

Video of Dr. Carolina Cruz-Neira (2016), on how virtual reality will shape the world of tomorrow, alt=Carolina Cruz-Neira on how virtual reality will shape the world of tomorrow Cruz-Neira was the Stanley Chair professor in Interdisciplinary Engineering, and a co-founder of the

Virtual Reality Applications Center The Virtual Reality Applications Center (VRAC) is a research center within the Engineering Teaching and Research Complex (ETRC) at Iowa State University (ISU) and is involved in advanced research of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), ...

(VRAC) at

Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the n ...

(ISU). In 2002, Dr. Cruz-Neira co-founded and co-directed the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) graduate program at ISU. She later joined the

University of Louisiana at Lafayette The University of Louisiana at Lafayette (UL Lafayette, University of Louisiana, ULL, or UL) is a public research university in Lafayette, Louisiana. It has the largest enrollment within the nine-campus University of Louisiana System and the s ...

in 2005, and in 2006, was the first CEO and Chief Scientist of LITE (Louisiana Immersive Technologies Enterprise), a Louisiana State initiative to support economic development immersive technologies. From 2009 to 2014 she was the W. Hansen Hall and Mary Officer Hall/BORSF Endowed Super Chair in Telecommunications in Computer Engineering at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. In 2014, she was named an Arkansas Research Scholar by the Arkansas Research Alliance and moved to Little Rock to lead the Emerging Analytics Center (EAC) at the

University of Arkansas at Little Rock The University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UA Little Rock) is a public research university in Little Rock, Arkansas. Established as Little Rock Junior College by the Little Rock School District in 1927, the institution became a private four-year ...

. In 2019, Cruz-Neira joined the

, as an Agere Chair Professor in the Computer Science Department. Many of her former students are now doing leading work in VR at places such as Unity Labs, Intel, Microsoft Research, Google, DreamWorks, EA, Deere & Company, Boeing, Sony Pictures Imageworks, and Argonne National Laboratory.

Other work

In 2017, Cruz-Neira was included in episode 8 "the player", in a ten part, Dutch documentary series, ''The'' ''Mind of the Universe'' (2017) by

Robbert Dijkgraaf Robertus Henricus "Robbert" Dijkgraaf FRSE (Dutch: born 24 January 1960) is a Dutch theoretical physicist, mathematician and string theorist, and the current Minister of Education, Culture and Science in the Netherlands. From July 2012 unti ...

and

VPRO The VPRO (stylized vpro; originally an acronym for , ) is a Dutch public broadcaster, which forms a part of the Dutch public broadcasting system. Founded in 1926 as a liberal Protestant broadcasting organization, it gradually became more ...

broadcast. In January, she was invited by

Dell Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies. Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...

to participate in the “VR for Good” panel at the 2018

Consumer Electronics Show CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event typi ...

to demonstrate how innovators are using virtual reality to make a positive impact on society. Since June 2019, she has served as Chief Editor of VR and Industry for ''Frontiers in Virtual Reality'' Journal.

Awards

* 2007 – awarded the

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

VGTC Virtual Reality Technical Achievement Award, in recognition of the development of the CAVE. * 2009 –

International Digital Media and Arts Association International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * ''International'' (New Order album), 2002 * ''International'' (The T ...

(iDMMa) awarded her the Distinguished Career Award * 2014 – Arkansas Research Alliance Scholar * 2016 – Polygon website's Top 25 VR Innovators award * 2016 – University Herald website's named her as one of the three greatest female innovators in virtual reality * 2018 – In February 2018 Dr. Cruz-Neira was elected to the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...

. * 2018 – Association for Computer Machinery (ACM), named Computer Pioneer.

References

External links

* Video
The Mind of The Universe (2017), episode 8
on YouTube {{DEFAULTSORT:Cruz-Neira, Carolina Living people American computer scientists Virtual reality pioneers American women computer scientists Universidad Metropolitana alumni University of Illinois Chicago alumni University of Louisiana at Lafayette faculty Year of birth missing (living people) University of Arkansas at Little Rock faculty University of Central Florida faculty Engineers from Arkansas Iowa State University faculty American women academics 21st-century American women