Dr. Carolina Cruz-Neira, director of the Emerging Analytics Center and interim chair of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, is one of the featured speakers at the 45th annual Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH) 2018. 

The conference, to be held Aug. 12-16 in Vancouver, is the world’s leading annual interdisciplinary educational event showcasing the latest in computer graphics and interactive techniques.

The event’s business symposium is designed for executives and top creative experts from the project creation industry, will present 22 speakers, and expects to welcome close to 200 executives from over a dozen countries, including Korea, India, Japan, China, France, Russia, and Cameroon.

With attendees spanning every specialty from business and technical management to software development and film production, the program will analyze and discuss trends in computer graphics, exploring the responsibility that comes with launching new technologies and fostering opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration.

The two-day event will explore the intersection of creativity, technology, and business. Symposium topics include: the social and human implications of technology that impact the way we design prototypes; how artificial intelligence is programmed; and how technology is creating rapid convergence of business models and design interfaces.

Earlier this year, Cruz-Neira, world-renowned inventor of the CAVE virtual environment, was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for her contributions to immersive visualization.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in systems engineering, cum laude, from the Universidad Metropolitana as well as a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science, both from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she specialized in virtual reality, visual analytics, and computations steering research.