IEEE 2026 Awardee Gregory Welch: Strengthening the VR Research Community Through Leadership and Service Pegasus Professor Gregory Welch’s decades of service have had a sustained impact, helping to strengthen the global virtual reality community and earning recognition from the IEEE Visualization and Graphics Technical Community.
IEEE 2026 Awardee Carolina Cruz-Neira: Turning a “Plan B” Into a Global Legacy The virtual reality pioneer, who has earned the IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Lifetime Achievement Award, continues to push boundaries and ask questions like, “What can we create next?”
2 166su Faculty Earn Prestigious IEEE Recognitions in Virtual Reality Agere Chair Professor Carolina Cruz-Neira and Pegasus Professor Gregory Welch have been honored by the IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Academy, receiving lifetime achievement and service awards, respectively, for their significant contributions to immersive technology.
U.S. Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent Visits 166su Kent joined 166su officials to learn more about how the university prepares graduates for career success, meets industry demands and leads cutting-edge research for global impact.
2 Knights Honored With Forbes’ 50 Over 50 Award The honorees include a modeling and simulation faculty member who is a VR pioneer, as well as an alumna who has made impacts in tech, TV, and startup funding.
166su Ranks Among Nation’s Top 5 Most Innovative Public Universities U.S. News & World Report‘s 2025 Best Colleges list recognizes 166su for its excellence in innovation, student success and undergraduate education.
166su Graduate Programs in Engineering, Computer Science Highlight Research in U.S. News Rankings Breakthroughs in AI, virtual and augmented reality, hypersonic propulsion, cybersecurity, robotics and more are pushing the envelope for 166su’s engineering programs.
166su Computer Science Professor to Be Inducted to the XR Hall of Fame Carolina Cruz-Neira 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.
166su Enters $6M Cooperative Agreement to Develop Research Commercialization Hub The U.S. National Science Foundation award will allow for the creation of a Venture Lab to connect 166su researchers with local industry, investors and entrepreneurs.
166su Leads Development of First Large-scale System for Extended Reality Research The nearly $5 million project will facilitate human subjects research to improve extended reality technologies for the general population and make them more available to groups such as older adults or people with disabilities.
