Virtual reality has been pushing the edge of innovation in engineering, design, health care, science, training and many other areas, proving itself as a valuable tool to improve, accelerate, and advance processes, research, training, and product-to-market operations. The innovation has happened from creative multidisciplinary collaborations coming together to address complex problems. This talk covers the speaker’s over 25 years of experience working in multidisciplinary teams, using virtual reality and interactive visualization as a tool to drive convergence research in many exciting areas. The talk highlights several projects in which unusual collaborations yielded successful projects and results, many of which with lasting impact beyond the life of the project. The talk will include a discussion of the speaker’s newest work on bringing social VR systems, those that a single platform allows for multiple users, to the consumer market. She will also discuss specific industry cases that she has led through collaborations with her research centers in which VR has proven its value to enhance productivity and efficiency.
Carolina Cruz-Neira, Ph.D., a member of the National Academy of Engineering, is a pioneer in the areas of virtual reality and interactive visualization, having created and deployed a variety of technologies that have become standard tools in industry, government and academia. She is known world-wide for being the creator of the CAVE virtual reality system. She has been named one of the top innovators in virtual reality and one of the top three greatest women visionaries in this field. BusinessWeek identified her as a “rising research star” in the next generation of computer science pioneers. Cruz-Neira is an ACM Computer Pioneer, received the IEEE Virtual Reality Technical Achievement Award and the Distinguished Career Award from the International Digital Media & Arts Society, among other national and international recognitions.