Attending CHI 2019 has been a very enriching experience for me. Getting to work as a Student Volunteer at the conference allowed me to make connections with many students (most of them in graduate school) and learn about their research projects in Human-Computer Interaction. I learned so much about the field, which I had had little exposure to before. I was able to appreciate the wide range of applications that HCI has during the many paper presentations and panels that I had the opportunity to attend. Also because of being a Student Volunteer, I had the chance to have lunch with very inspiring professors like Professor Ben Schniderman (pictured above) and Professor Elizabeth Gerber who shared some stories about their journeys in HCI and how they got to where they are now.

While volunteering, I got to attend the presentation of the paper I collaborated on with Professor Evan Peck and Omar El Etr from Bucknell University about the perception of data visualizations in rural Pennsylvania. I was very proud to be present in the culmination of this project that I worked on last year and to receive the Best Paper Award.

Before CHI 2019, I had never considered research as a path for me after graduation. I was set in working in industry right after I finished my undergraduate studies. However, seeing the interesting work presented at the conference, I definitely want to explore the possibility of doing research in HCI in a graduate institution. I am very grateful for this eye-opening opportunity and I very much appreciate the support given by the ACM-W and Bucknell to make this possible.