Carolina Cruz-Neira co-invented the CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE) in the early 1990s, a groundbreaking immersive VR system that allows users to experience an immersive reality space within a room-sized cube. Her work began as a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she played a pivotal role in developing the CAVE as a new platform for immersive visualization and virtual reality.

Her work significantly influenced the XR industry by bypassing the need for heavy VR headsets, expanding the applications of immersive technology, and enabling sophisticated visualizations across multiple disciplines, especially for industrial applications. Cruz-Neira's contributions as a professor and founding director of several prominent VR labs such as the Louisiana Emerging Analytics Center serve to confirm her impact on advancing immersive technologies for real world needs.