Evelyn Miralles

Evelyn Miralles is a computer engineer, raised in Caracas, Venezuela, who spent 27 years, from 1992 to 2019, working on virtual reality astronaut training at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas. As a contractor engineer she became chief principal engineer of the JSC Virtual Reality Laboratory (VRLab), the facility where astronauts rehearse spacewalks and robotic arm operations, and she co-wrote the lab's 3D graphics software, Dynamic Onboard Ubiquitous Graphics (DOUG).

She was the author of a 2013 paper describing the ISS Virtual Reality Trainer, a head-mounted viewer built around a laptop already on board the International Space Station that gave crews an immersive version of the VRLab's training scenes in orbit. In 2016 the BBC named her to its 100 Women list, and she is an inductee of the XR Hall of Fame run by Augmented World Expo (AWE). After leaving her NASA contract work she joined the University of Houston-Clear Lake (UHCL) as an associate vice president in 2019, and in 2023 she founded the technology consulting company Xploration LLC.

Reviewed 13 October 2026. Checked every career, education, award and VR Trainer technical claim against the NASA NTRS paper full text, NASA VR Lab and software catalog pages, UHCL, BBC, AWE, SRQ, Hispanic Executive, ideaXme, AARP, Road to VR and Route Fifty sources. About review dates.

Early life and education

Miralles grew up in Caracas, Venezuela, and wanted to become an architect; a brother and a sister worked in chemical and electrical engineering. According to a 2018 ideaXme profile, she immigrated to the United States from Venezuela as a teenager. Her father worked in Venezuela's oil industry for more than 50 years and expected her to earn a university degree, according to a first-person profile published by AARP in 2018.

She moved to the United States to study for a bachelor's degree at Lamar University, enrolling in 1986, and switched her focus there from art to computer studies; in 1990 she began a second bachelor's degree at UHCL. The ideaXme profile lists a bachelor's degree in computer graphics from Lamar. UHCL records that she earned a B.A. in computer information systems there in 1992 and an MBA in 2012; the biography in her 2013 NASA paper describes the MBA as being in management of technologies.

Career

Johnson Space Center Virtual Reality Laboratory

Miralles was hired at JSC, a government agency next door to UHCL, in 1992. She told Hispanic Executive that she was "probably the only candidate that had a background in both computer programming and graphics". In a 2023 interview with SRQ Magazine she said NASA recruited her because it wanted computer scientists with a graphics background, that she programmed in C++, and that the VR lab was a small group of "about five to seven individuals". She said the first mission she supported with VR was the repair of the Hubble Space Telescope, and that its activities were rehearsed in VR for the first time in the space program. She helped build a 3D computer graphics replica of the International Space Station.

The JSC VRLab is NASA's extravehicular activity (EVA) and robotics operations training facility. It runs on the NASA Trick simulation environment, the DOUG graphics software and custom robotic hardware, and its crews wear helmet-mounted displays while robots simulate the handling of large masses in microgravity. NASA lists CACI International as the lab's support contractor. Miralles worked there through contractors: her 2013 paper gives her affiliation as L3 STRATIS at the JSC VRLab, and UHCL describes her final NASA-side role as principal engineer, innovator and business technology strategist at CACI International. AWE's Hall of Fame profile describes her as the lab's chief principal engineer, and in 2018 ideaXme reported that she led the team writing VR software tailored to specific spacewalks and robotics maneuvers.

DOUG software

Miralles co-wrote DOUG, according to her own account in Hispanic Executive and AWE's profile; UHCL's announcement credits her with co-designing VR graphics software still in use by NASA and International Space Station partners. In her 2013 paper she described DOUG as "the meat of the virtual reality system": it provides the 3D model of the station's exterior used for EVA and robotics training, and is also available to crew members, flight controllers and instructors on their individual computers; astronauts used it on board the station and the shuttle for EVA and robotics support throughout ISS assembly. NASA's software catalog lists DOUG as a general public release used for simulation, training and planning of EVA and robotic activities, including situational awareness and just-in-time training on the ISS. The AARP profile says she also co-developed EDGE, a related graphics package used at research facilities.

ISS Virtual Reality Trainer

With the Space Shuttle retired, station crews could no longer rely on shuttle astronauts trained on the ground for a specific exterior repair, and Miralles's 2013 paper notes that six to eight months could pass between a crew member's last training session and the EVA itself. The VRLab's answer was the Virtual Reality Trainer (VRT), which she presented at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Modeling and Simulation Technologies conference in Boston in August 2013.

Commercial VR systems surveyed by the team lacked the field of view and resolution the lab wanted, so the VRT reused hardware already certified for the station. A 3D-printed hood made from flight-rated flame-retardant plastic straps to the screen of a Lenovo ThinkPad T61p, and the modified DOUG software splits the laptop's 1920 x 1200 display into two 960 x 1200 images, one per eye. A two-lens optics assembly (a plano-concave and a plano-convex element) gives an almost 100 degree horizontal field of view with more than 44 degrees of stereo overlap and a 19 mm "sweet spot" that accommodates different users without mechanical adjustment; metal adapters hold the SuperFocus prescription lenses some crew members use. A Logitech QuickCam Pro webcam on the back of the screen provides head tracking: DOUG computes pan and tilt from the optical flow of the camera image using the OpenCV library. A DOUG plug-in corrects the lens distortion of the canted optics by rendering to an off-screen buffer and drawing it onto a ray-traced distortion mesh. Crews navigate with the SAFER hand controller module.

According to the paper, the VRT launched to the station on the ATV-4 cargo vehicle on 5 June 2013 and was the first fully immersive VR system available on board. Its planned uses were EVA procedure review, contingency EVA familiarization and SAFER self-rescue training. The paper also reports that work on the trainer led the lab to a new generation of ground head-mounted displays with LCD panels, 1280 x 800 pixels per eye and a 110 degree horizontal field of view.

Miralles described the lab's work at the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality Conference and Expo in San Jose in 2015 (SVVR 2015), where her talk covered NASA's use of VR for spacewalk training in the 1990s. Reporting on the talk, Route Fifty described how astronauts use the lab to practice returning to the station after becoming untethered and to operate the station's robotic arm, and how her team turned a laptop and webcam into a makeshift head-mounted display for training in orbit. When the BBC listed her among its 100 Women in November 2016, it described her as leading a NASA team developing the VR programme for the Mars mission.

University of Houston-Clear Lake and Xploration

On 1 May 2019 Miralles joined UHCL as associate vice president for Strategic Information Initiatives and Technology, a role covering technology for teaching and learning, external partnerships and curriculum reviews with the university's colleges; UHCL's announcement credited her with more than 26 years of work integral to human spaceflight. She also lectured at the university. In 2023 she became founder and CEO of Xploration LLC, a technology consulting company supporting aerospace, higher education and general business. AWE's Hall of Fame profile lists her as Xploration's founder and CEO.

Recognition

Year	Recognition	Source
2012	NASA astronaut office Space Flight Safety award (received December 2012, per her 2013 paper)
2016	BBC 100 Women list
2016	CNET Top 20 Most Influential Latinos in Technology
2016	UHCL Distinguished Alumni Award
2018	CNET International Women's Day Inspiring Women

Miralles is also an inductee of AWE's XR Hall of Fame. Throughout her career she has spoken to students and volunteered with young women in STEM, and AWE's profile cites her advocacy of STEM education for girls.

See also

• NASA
• SVVR 2015
• Head-mounted display