Cruz-Neira graduated cum laude with a degree in systems engineering and a minor in business administration from the Universidad Metropolitana in Caracas, Venezuela in 1987.

[1] Cruz-Neira pursued a degree in classical ballet dance at the Magdalena Rueda Studio and the Music Conservatory of Alicante, Spain starting at the age of 3 years old.

She continued her dance education and public performances with Mary Luz Cabezos in Venezuela and later with several Chicago-based companies until a ski accident in her mid 20s broke her knee, which caused her to focus on her engineering career.

Her system monitored the status of all the plants, stations, inventory, and supply chain, accelerating the farm's operations by optimizing resource usage and cost.

Her academic honors and her work at Teleprovenca led her to receive a Rotary International Ambassador Award, which brought her to the United States to pursue a MS degree while learning English.

[citation needed] Cruz-Neira was the Stanley Chair professor in Interdisciplinary Engineering, and a co-founder of the Virtual Reality Applications Center (VRAC) at Iowa State University (ISU).

[3] From 2009 to 2014 she was the W. Hansen Hall and Mary Officer Hall/BORSF Endowed Super Chair in Telecommunications in Computer Engineering at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

Many of her former students are now doing leading work in VR at places such as Unity Labs, Intel, Microsoft Research, Google, DreamWorks, EA, Deere & Company, Boeing, Sony Pictures Imageworks, and Argonne National Laboratory.

[12] In 2017, Cruz-Neira was included in episode 8 "the player", in a ten part, Dutch documentary series, The Mind of the Universe (2017) by Robbert Dijkgraaf and VPRO broadcast.

[13] In January, she was invited by Dell to participate in the “VR for Good” panel at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show to demonstrate how innovators are using virtual reality to make a positive impact on society.