MCG Committee
Executive committee members
MCG Chair
Georgina Brooke
Content Strategist, One Further
Georgina is a Content Strategist at One Further. Since 2021, when she joined she’s worked for clients such as MoMA, Tate and National Museums Scotland and Wales. She leads on projects relating to content design, content strategy, SEO, digital strategy, website discovery, social media and digital user research.
She’s held previous roles leading digital content teams at National Museums Scotland and Oxford University Museums and Gardens. She began her career working under Sarah Winters (nee Richards) during the first iteration of gov.uk as part of the developing Government Digital Service.
Georgina publishes the bi-monthly newsletter; Cultural Content, with a regular readership of around 3,000.
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Secretary
Ed Bankes
Website Content Manager, Royal Academy of Arts
Ed is the Website Content Manager at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, where he is responsible for the day-to-day management of the RA website. He works with colleagues across the Academy to maintain an accessible and intuitive user experience across the website by means of a detail-oriented, data-informed and consistent approach to copywriting, information design and content provision.
Ed started his career at Cog Design, a digital agency which specialises in arts organisations and their audiences. There he provided administrative support, developed the agency’s marketing and worked towards Cog’s B-Corp certification.
He has a BA in English Literature from the University of Cambridge and is interested in the role technology can play in bringing new audiences to museums.
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Treasurer
Russell Stearman
Technical Director, Joi Polloi
Russell is the Technical Director at Sheffield agency Joi Polloi, creating work for culture, media and broadcast. Over his 19 year experience, he’s worked on many digital cultural projects, creating installations and group website for the Science Museum, digital exhibits for Glasgow Science Centre, games for the Natural History Museum & National Museums Scotland, digital strategy for the Royal Armouries, and science interpretation for Royal Botanical Gardens Kew. With the BBC he’s created citizen science and research pieces, and dealt with the highs and lows of creating digital work supporting live broadcast TV.
He loves creative storytelling in the digital media, having recently created the The Book In The Book ‘choose your own documentary’ and has a background in kids games and e-learning, trying to make the complex approachable and fun.
Twitter: @russStearman
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Other committee members
Sarah Middle
Researcher (Tools of Knowledge project), National Museums Scotland
Sarah is a postdoctoral researcher on the Tools of Knowledge project at National Museums Scotland. A key component of this project is remodelling a legacy database of historical scientific instrument makers, for which Sarah has largely been responsible for designing the underlying ontology and data model. Other areas Sarah has explored as part of this work include object itineraries, crowdsourcing, and Linked Humanities Data infrastructure. Before joining NMS, Sarah completed a PhD at the Open University on Linked Ancient World Data usability, having previously worked in academic libraries and digital project management.
Follow @digitalshrew
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Alec Ward
Museum Development Officer Digital & Communications, Museum of London
Alec works for the London Museum Development team, based at the Museum of London. As the Museum Development Officer for Digital and Communications, he leads on the Digital Futures programme and provides support for London’s non-national museums in all areas of digital tech and practice. He runs a number of different training sessions for London’s museums, from creating digital 3D models to developing a social media strategy. Outside of the programme of training events, he also provides support to London’s museums in the form of site visits and one-to-one consultation around digital projects and practice. Alec runs the Twitter account for the London Museum Development team, having experience of setting up and managing social media platforms in a previous role, for the Museum of the Order of St John. He is also on the committee for the London Museums of Health and Medicine (LMHM), as one of two Webmasters. For LMHM, he co-manages the website as well as the JISCMail for the group.
Follow @thatmuseumguy
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Graham Davies
Digital Experience Manager, Amgueddfa Cymru
Graham has worked for Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales for over 20 years. After gaining a Geology degree at Aberystwyth University, his early years at the museum saw him help document the natural science collections, transferring almost half a million specimen catalogue entries onto computer databases. He then moved into the digital team to develop the Museum’s intranet. From there Graham began to focus on external digital content and became online curator, and then as Digital Programmes Manager overseeing the Digital Content team. He has managed numerous digital projects, including the redesign of the Museums website which has been a springboard for embedding digital skills through the museum. In 2017 Graham was invited as guest speaker for the British Council’s International Museum Academy’s Transforming Future Museums training programme in Greece (and more recently in Burma in 2020), sharing best practice and engaging with numerous museums and professionals to embed digital skills, increasing their organisations impact, resilience and sustainability. Graham is currently member of the ArtUK Steering Panel, and Programming Committee of the MGC. Graham is audience focused, always working towards achieving successful online user experiences thorough evidence focussed, measurable results.
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Mark Pajak
Head of Digital, Bristol Culture
Mark Pajak is Head of Digital for Bristol Culture and Creative Industries. Mark and his digital team manage technology online and on-site across Bristol Museums and Bristol Archives. Mark’s interests involve making digitised museum collections accessible through opening up collections data and multimedia online. Mark has a background in Natural Sciences, collections management and CRM analytics and has worked in a range of museum roles in Exeter and Bristol including being a volunteer, documentation officer and Natural History Curator. Mark has also worked in the private sector as a marketing database consultant. Mark has been working to improve how Bristol Culture collects, uses and shares data about performance, putting user research at the forefront of all projects. Through the application of their digital principles, Bristol Culture has undergone an extensive digital transformation over the last five years.
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Michael Hardy
Digital Engagement Curator, Barnsley Museums
Michael Hardy is Barnsley Museums’ first Digital Curator. Michael won the Digital Culture Awards inaugural Emerging Digital Leader prize in 2022. The judges were impressed with the breadth of digital content produced throughout the pandemic to stay connected with the museums audiences. This included #MuseumJigsaws which gained an international following and remains popular almost three years later! Michael experiments with lots of playful content on social media to share the stories of Barnsley Museums five venues and diverse collections, this includes a blogsite, podcasts, film shows and online exhibitions. Michael also uses his digital skills to support community groups across the Barnsley Borough as well as helping to make sure that digital is embedded across the Barnsley Museums service.
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Jie Che, Wan
Assistant Manager (Business & Museum Analytics), National Gallery Singapore
Based in Singapore, Jie Che (she/her) is an Assistant Manager (Business & Museum Analytics) at the National Gallery Singapore. She works closely with internal stakeholders to harness business and museum qualitative and quantitative data from various sources to inform organisational strategy and decision-making. Jie Che gathers and evaluates research data across all touchpoints on visitors’ experience of the museum’s exhibitions, programmes, and amenities, utilising research and survey findings to inform appropriate improvements in visitors’ experience of the museum’s total offerings.
Jie Che is also a Community Development Volunteer with The Glass Hut (Singapore), a collective that focuses on multi-dimensional live arts experiences, where she is also a core founding member. She freelances as a writer/blogger, focusing on the local and Southeast Asian art scene.
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Tijana Tasich
Customer Experience and Service Design Consultant
Tijana is a distinguished leader in customer experience and service design boasting over two decades at the intersection of design, business and technology. Her expertise spans a range of industries, including the cultural sector, public sector, healthcare, consumer goods, and financial services. She has most recently worked in tech consultancies as a CX and service design leader, and prior to that she successfully led teams and deliver digital transformation, and digital products and services for the likes of Tate, the Royal Institution of Great Britain and the Southbank Centre. Renowned for her charismatic and inspirational leadership, she blends empathy, creativity, and a passion for leveraging design as a catalyst for meaningful and sustainable change. She’s committed to enabling customer-centricity and advocating for human-centric, inclusive, and planet-centric design practices. Dedicated to excellence, she led teams to groundbreaking achievements, notably as the NHS Covid-19 App Experience Design Lead, for which her team won the UK IT Industry ‘Best Development Team of the Year’ Award in 2021, showcasing the power of inclusive, human-centric design.
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Natalie McGowan
Head of Partnerships, Humap
Natalie is the Head of Partnerships at Humap, a storytelling platform that works primarily with heritage and educational organisations.
They have volunteered extensively within the sector, most notably with the Ashmolean Museum, Mainly Museums and Worcester’s Tudor House Museum. At Humap, their job is to create and nurture relationships, advise and oboard clients, and manage comms and engagement. Natalie has a BA in Ancient History from the University of Birmingham and an MSc in Visual, Material, and Museum Anthropology from the University of Oxford.
Follow: @nat_mcgowan
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Nia Martin-Evans
Digital Content Manager – Amgueddfa Cymru
Nia joined Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales back in 2019 as a Digital Content Editor. Perfect timing in a way to support and co-ordinate digital content on Social Media platforms and the Website during the pandemic. Nia’s journey into digital began at Brighton University whilst study Digital Management and Production. Since then she’s worked within Digital teams across multiple sectors in Wales, including Media and Education before moving to the Museum sector. Since 2023 she is the Digital Content Manager at Amgueddfa Cymru, overseeing the work of the Content Team, managing web development and co-ordinating digital projects within exhibitions and events
Fay Curtis
User Researcher, Bristol Culture
Livi Adu
e-Curator, Much Adu About
Livi is a freelance e-curator for Much Adu About. She focuses on digital public engagement, specialising in geology, decolonising histories, and promoting inclusivity through storytelling and creative mediums. With over a decade of digital marketing experience, she brings her social media, SEO, and User Experience (UX) expertise to the heritage sector.
As well as being a committee member of MCG, she is serving on the Museums Association Code of Ethics review working group, a scholar of the Culture & New Museums School Socially engaged practice in museums and art galleries Masters course at the University of Leicester, and working towards achieving my AMA (Associate of Museums Association) with the Museums Association. As part of her AMA project, Livi is working with MCG to research AI ethical frameworks for the museum sector.
Livi is dedicated to shaping a more accessible and inclusive heritage sector through exploring the integration of Games, VR, AR, and AI to enrich arts and culture, with a vision of welcoming contributions from all and creating a transformative cultural landscape.