I knew Ilmo from his time at Oxford working on his PhD, which was part of a broader project (‘EROS’) that I was employed on in Sheffield, UK. While we didn’t work closely together in the project, he was someone I looked forward to seeing at our meetings around the country, because of his enthusiasm and humour, and we forged a side project that we ended up publishing.

The thing I remember most is that as the project drew to a close, we put together a book to share our findings about emotions to a wider audience (‘Should I strap a battery to my head? And other questions about emotion’). Someone had the neat idea of having all our contributors state their favourite emotion in their bio, and Ilmo chose elevation.

Even today I have to look up what elevation means. According to the reliable source of Wikipedia, it is “an emotion elicited by witnessing actual or imagined virtuous acts of remarkable moral goodness. It is experienced as a distinct swelling of warmth and expansion that is accompanied by appreciation…”

What a beautiful emotion! I suspect many people experienced elevation during their relationships with Ilmo, even if they couldn’t put a name to it. I was so sad to hear of his passing and send my thoughts to his loved ones.

Karen Niven