I attended the annual conference on Computer-Human Interaction (CHI 2015) in Seoul, Korea this year. The experience was very rewarding. This year was my first time serving on the committee in the role of Proceedings Chair. Receiving the scholarship to attend helped me to network with the other committee members including top researchers in the field of HCI in Korea, whom I otherwise would never have the opportunity to meet. I also was able to meet with next year’s Proceedings chairs to pass on knowledge gained from serving in that role to help them improve the conference printed program for next year.

From an academic standpoint I was able to attend talks relevant to my dissertation research. I also had the opportunity to meet with individuals on my dissertation committee who are external members. They were able to offer guidance for my dissertation work. I also attended a course on Sketching the User Experience which provided me with training on how to apply sketching techniques to improve and enhance the research process: whether to test out new design ideas or as a technique to report back findings to a research team. This will be especially useful for me as I begin my role as a User Experience Researcher at a large software company in the Fall.

Thanks to ACM-W for the scholarship, which made it possible to attend this conference and to get a leg up on my career.