Telling Our Stories – Ellen McWey
Each year we meet incredible women at womENcourage™ celebrations. We ask womENcourage participants to tell their stories in blog posts. We continue 2022 with Ellen McWey, who was studying Mathematics and Economics in the University of Limerick, Ireland when she participated in the event.
My womENcourage Experience
By Ellen McWey
My name is Ellen McWey and I am from a rural area in Ireland. I study Mathematics and Economics in the University of Limerick and I enjoy kayaking, horse riding and outdoor sports. My future career plan is still a work in progress, but I like statistics and analysis, so I am interested in pursuing a career in data science or becoming an analyst.
I was delighted to be able to attend the ACM womENcourage conference 2021 and the variety of different sessions they hosted were both interesting and educational. Personally, I really enjoyed Kristina Hӧӧk’s session “Soma design: Intertwining aesthetics, movement and emotion in design work”. Her positive, innovative, and empowering attitude gave me a great insight into the world of design. I always thought the Swedish concept of lagom and the Danish concept of hygge were interesting and progressive and Kristina extends this art of living a more balanced and satisfied life into the realm of design through her use of soma design. Her passion for design is infectious and she showcased some of the products her and her colleagues are working on, such as a lamp that follows your breathing, a matt that heats up and a corset that mirrors the movements of an opera singer so that the audience can experience what it is like to be in her body while she is singing. Kristina’s keynote was thoroughly enjoyable and followed on smoothly from Danica Kragic’s keynote, which was also about the possibilities of technology and design. She talked about the importance of not dividing the mind from the body and demonstrated the joy of movement through a baby learning to roll. Her talk was full of the richness of life she aims to achieve with soma design and was very inspiring.