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Inducted October 2024
In recognition of Carolina Cruz-Neira, Ph.D., for her pioneering accomplishments in modeling and simulation with pivotal contributions in the fields of virtual reality (VR), interactive visualization, high performance computing, and digital twins. As a leader in her field, Dr. Cruz-Neira has earned global acclaim in the modeling, simulation and training (MS&T) community for creating the CAVE immersive system, and her efforts have become standard tools recognized by professionals in government, industry, and academia. Her work has been instrumental in facilitating data analysis, decision-making, design reviews, and training and education. Dr. Cruz-Neira has received praise from major companies for increasing product safety and improving design and production processes that have saved time and millions of dollars. Her innovations have influenced training and research for NASA, the University of Central Florida, the U.S. military, and U.S. National Laboratories. Dr. Cruz-Neira’s leadership in addressing large problems by forming interdisciplinary teams has become a key to innovation and considered standard practice in driving American competitiveness in the global economy.
Carolina Cruz-Neira, Ph.D., is a pioneer in modeling and simulation (M&S) with pivotal contributions in the fields of virtual reality (VR), interactive visualization, high performance computing, and digital twins. She is known worldwide for being the creator of the CAVE VR system, an immersive virtual reality environment where projectors are directed to between three and six walls of a room-sized cube. Multiple engineering firms have used this innovation to enhance product development in various industries.
Cruz-Neira’s work has translated to standard tools in industry, government and academia, and her career is a combination of academics, entrepreneurship and government leadership. Companies as diverse as Deere and Company, Ford Motors, P&G, ExxonMobil, Raytheon, Pfizer, GE and Lockheed Martin, have maintained their global leadership, partially through her innovations. By employing the advances Cruz-Neira and her team have developed, these companies have reported several benefits, such as a 60% development cost reduction, a 50% decrease in assembly labor, product design time reduced from 27 to nine months, hundreds and millions of dollars in cost savings due to early identification of potential design and safety issues, a significant increase in sales by immersing customers in their processes and product operation, enhanced and accelerated training, and reduced risk and exposure to dangerous situations.
She has over one hundred publications and has received over $250 million in grants and contracts in the M&S field. The U.S. military has employed Cruz-Neira’s innovations in mission command and control, training, planning and debriefing. U.S. National Laboratories have used her research as a platform for many of their own innovations. NASA and other government organizations have used her developments in their workflow and as educational tools, while government policymakers and funding decision-makers have used them as informative tools.
