Being able to attend RO-MAN 2014 in Edinburgh, Scotland was an absolutely fantastic opportunity and I am extremely grateful to ACM-W for helping me get there. I was awed from start to finish that I was able to attend my first conference in such a beautiful city. This past spring, I worked with my graduate student mentor to write a paper called “Legible Robot Pointing” that I presented in a 20-minute talk on the second day of the conference. While definitely a nerve-wracking experience, everything went smoothly and the talk was fairly well received.

Throughout all five days I sat in countless talks and seminars, hurried writing down notes and trying to soak up as much knowledge as I could. Watching the presentations exposed me to a lot of current research and with a copy of the proceedings I can investigate the particularly interesting topics even further. In addition, seeing such a variety of people present gave me many ideas on what I look and do not like in a talk, which certainly helps prepare me for my next presentation! A particularly fun part of the conference was meeting many researchers in the field and getting to know not only their work but them as people. This conference was actually my first trip off the continent and I loved every moment of it! Admittedly a significant amount of time during the conference was spent thinking about my next project, so I can do this all over again soon!