WaveWaste: Exploring an Interactive Movement-Based Reflection System to Support Graduate Student Emotional Well-Being

Graduate students face persistent challenges including high stress, self-doubt, and limited opportunities for meaningful emotional expression. Traditional reflection tools in higher education emphasize text-based journaling, which can feel restrictive for those who process experiences more naturally through embodied or creative modes. This dissertation proposes WaveWaste, a movement-based digital platform designed to enable doctoral students to reflect on emotionally charged positive and negative experiences. The study investigates how embodied reflection through movement affects emotional responses and insight, and how movement patterns differ when reflecting on negative versus positive experiences. This work advances embodied interaction in HCI by reconceptualizing the body not as a tool for input or control, but as an active medium for emotional expression, meaning-making, and self-reflection, and contributes a novel approach to supporting graduate student resilience.