We have an amazing line up of speakers for this year’s conference. Find out more about who will be sharing their projects and learning with us at the online on 9 and 10 December. Book your tickets now!
Georgina Brooke – Digital Media Content Manager, National Museums Scotland
Georgina Brooke is Digital Media Content Manager at National Museums Scotland. She entered the museums sector when she took up a one-year contract job at the Ashmolean to project manage their new web site build and create all the content for it. She was subsequently hired by all the other museums under the Oxford University Group to do the same job (Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Pitt Rivers Museum, History of Science Museum as well as the Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum). Georgina has managed social media for the main University of Oxford channels (where she also set up the Instagram account in 2015) and also for the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. She initially entered the workforce for the digital agency Reading Room, where she worked in London and in Singapore for clients such as the British Portrait Gallery and the Government Digital Service.
Emilie Carruthers – Education Manager: Samsung Digital Learning Programme, British Museum
Emilie Carruthers works in digital learning at the British Museum and is part of the team who manages the Samsung Digital Discovery Centre. She has worked in digital teams across museums in the UK and internationally. She is interested in making museums genuinely positive places where people want to spend time and young people feel welcome.
Rafie Cecilia – PhD candidate, University College London
Rafie is a PhD candidate and Guest Lecturer at UCL. Her research project examines the embodied and digital museum experience of blind and partially sighted people. Rafie has extensive experience of working in museums, carrying out research projects, public speaking, coordinating public engagement activities and university teaching. She is an advocate for equality, social justice and sustainable change. Her work is in service of the idea that cultural heritage should be open and accessible to everyone in society, and she puts these principles into practice in concrete and sustainable ways.
As part of her work as an independent consultant and audience researcher, she collaborates with the British Museum (London), the Fitzwilliam Museum (University of Cambridge), the Wellcome Collection (London) and the Science Museum Group (London). She is a member of the Global Disability Innovation Hub, the Association of Critical Heritage Studies, and the founder of the Disability Innovation Research Society.
Paul Fabel – Initiator and Co-Founder, Guided
Guided is a cloud-based app which enables interactive and personal remote guided tours to heritage sites and museums. It is a #EUvsVIRUS hackathon winner (April 2020) and formed by a pan-European team working solely remotely – until today. Paul and his team strive to making culture accessible for everyone, everywhere.
Paul works as a programme specialist for world heritage at the German National Commission for UNESCO in Bonn, Germany. Prior to this, he was a fellow with the Mercator-Fellowship on International Affairs with the German Foreign Office, focusing on illicit trafficking of cultural property and worked for UNESCO’s illicit trafficking programme in Paris, France. Paul majored in international relations and cultural heritage law.
Sophie Frost & Lauren Vargas – Research Associates, University of Leicester
Dr Sophie Frost is an interdisciplinary scholar of Visual Culture, Creative Industries and Museum Studies. She is Research Fellow on the AHRC ‘One by One UK-US’ project, led by the School of Museum Studies at University of Leicester. Sophie lectures on the BA Creative and Cultural Industries course at Kingston University and King’s College London’s MA Education in Arts and Cultural Settings. Sophie also works as a consultant for several arts and heritage organisations, including Southbank Centre, Freelands Foundation and Greenham Control Tower.
By day, Dr Lauren ‘L’ Vargas is a digital dragon wrangler with 20 years of experience assisting organizations with their community and communication strategies. Vargas is an independent researcher and consultant of Your Digital Tattoo, as well as, a ‘One by One’ Research Associate with the University of Leicester – delivering a “practical approach to building digital literacies within specific museum contexts” for UK and US museums.
John Glancy – Executive Producer (Schools and Familes), Imperial War Museums
John Glancy is an Executive Producer within Public Engagement and Learning at Imperial War Museums. Previous to this John worked primarily in theatre creative learning which included periods as Head of Creative Learning at the Royal Lyceum in Edinburgh and Schools Producer for the Lyric Hammersmith.
John is a native of the Port of Leith in Scotland but now resides in Manchester with his partner and their soon to be born first child. He is passionate about access to culture and history. He is also an unashamed fan of professional wrestling and zombie fiction.
Amy Hondsmerk – PhD candidate, Nottingham Trent University
Amy is a PhD researcher exploring the intersection of museums, videogames, and interpretation, based at Nottingham Trent University. She has previously gained a BA in History at the University of Nottingham, before shifting focus to museum studies for her MA, which she studied at Nottingham Trent University.
Amy also works freelance for a heritage consultancy and has experience working with a large range of museums and heritage sites. Her primary interests outside of interpretation are in creative outreach and engagment, with a focus on digital tools. She spends much of her free time playing videogames.
Chris How – Principal UX Consultant, Clearleft
Chris is a Principal UX Consultant at Clearleft, an award-winning digital design consultancy based in Brighton, UK. He helps clients create meaningful audience centered digital products and services through design leadership, strategic thinking and robust research.
Chris has delivered many large scale public engagement projects for Museums including The Met and Whitney in New York and The British Library, Tate and the Science Museum in the UK. He has had the pleasure to speak at MuseumNext and Museums and the Web.
Chris will be joined for the Q&A by Emma Mulliner, Product Manager, Digital Services, Natural History Museum.
Shereen Hunte – Learning Officer, Jewish Museum London
Shereen Hunte is a Learning Officer at the Jewish Museum London. Over the past three years, she has been responsible for teaching and developing school workshops, organising internships and voluntary placements and co-curating community exhibitions. Hunte has played a key role in growing the Black History Programme from Black History Month tours to regular virtual tours, an exhibition and school workshops. She has also been responsible for coordinating the Museum’s Digital Programme, including podcasts and the museum’s online Learning Portal.
During lockdown, along with the rest of the museum team, Shereen has been delivering virtual Object Talks, Family Activities and Tours.
Alix Geddes – Digital Analyst, One Further
Alix Geddes is a Digital Analyst at One Further and holds a Master’s degree in Museum Studies from the University of St Andrews. She is passionate about digital preservation and how museums can make use of digital technologies.
At One Further, Alix works with clients such as the British Museum, Tate and the V&A, helping them to understand and improve the performance of their websites and digital content
Bridget McKenzie – Director, Climate Museum UK
Bridget McKenzie is a researcher and creative curator in culture, learning and environment. She has been director of Flow Associates since 2006, after 14 years in roles such as Education Officer for Tate and Head of Learning at the British Library. Research projects have included feasibility studies into joined-up digital collections, digital strategies for national cultural funders and heritage bodies, and evaluations of educational and digital programmes. She is an advisor for Culture Unstained and co-founder of Culture Declares Emergency, a movement of artists and cultural organisations declaring climate and ecological emergency. She presents and publishes internationally on the possibilities of Regenerative Culture and the role of museums in facing crisis. She is founding director of Climate Museum UK, a new CIC which stirs and collects the emerging response to the Earth crisis.
Follow Bridget on Twitter @bridgetmck or visit Bridget’s website.
Becki Morris – Director and Associate Consultant, Disability Collaborative Network and EMBED
Since 2015, Becki created and founded the Disability Collaborative Network which in 2018 became a CIC. DCN creates and supports the Heritage Sector through identifying barriers, creating solutions and positive action to empower staff and organisations to create intersectional inclusive practice within the Heritage and Arts sector.
Becki is a trustee of AchieveAbility and Stage Text. Becki was a member of the Advisory Board for Universal Music UK Creative Differences: A handbook for embracing neurodiversity in the creative industries and has contributed to publications on good practice in the workplace for neurodiverse people.
In 2020, DCN became a partner of EMBED, a unique cross-sector partnership to support the heritage sector in key skills and learning to develop a fresh approach to diverse museums and heritage organisations on their inclusion journey through the user experience, working practice and workforce.
Jo Morrison, Calcium
Jo operates at the intersection of research, design and enterprise. Focusing on digital innovation and multidisciplinary collaboration, she aims to create more pleasurable, sustainable and citizen-centred environments through digital placemaking practices. Jo works across sectors, including the built environment, creative industries, culture and education.
Jo is a leadership member of the Association of Collaborative Design, fellow of the Institute of Place Management, fellow of the HEA, Industry Champion for the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre, Digital Placemaking Consultant for the Bristol+Bath Creative R&D the and her PhD centres on hybrid practices for the design of interactive objects situated in the public realm.
Carlyn Osborne – Digital Collections Specialist, Library of Congress; Lauren Algee – Senior Innovation Specialist, Library of Congress
Carlyn Osborn is a Digital Collections Specialist at the Library of Congress, where she serves as a Community Manager for the By the People program. She has degrees from the University of Maryland and the Johns Hopkins University and is interested in crowdsourced cultural heritage, audience development, and digital engagement. She lives in Washington, DC.
Lauren Algee is a Senior Innovation Specialist at the Library of Congress, where she serves as a Community Manager for By the People. She previously led digital collections at DC Public Library, Special Collections and was an archivist at the US National Gallery of Art. Lauren is interested in public history and democratisation of knowledge.
Mark Pajak – Head of Digital, Bristol Culture
Mark Pajak is the digital lead for Bristol Culture, managing technology online and on-site across five museums and Bristol Archives. 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 curator. 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 the Bristol Culture has undergone an extensive digital transformation over the last five years.
Richard Palmer – Technical Leader, V&A; Joseph Padfield, Conservation Scientist, National Gallery
Richard Palmer is the Technical Lead for the Digital Media & Publishing department at the Victoria & Albert Museum. The department maintains the web estate for the museum, and participates in projects advancing web and museum sector digital standards, with a current focus on interoperability of collections data through linked data.
Joseph Padfield is a Conservation Scientist at the National Gallery. His work encompasses the fields of preventive conservation, colour science, conservation documentation, technical examination of paintings, generating/sharing digital images, image processing, web development, data management and integration systems development, database development, open‐linked data, RDF triple stores and the semantic web.
Kate Rolfe – Founding Director, The Revels Office; Marco Savo – Magazine Director, Audiovisual City
Kate Rolfe is Founding Director of The Revels Office, a commercial and audience development consultancy that aims to empower cultural organisations to generate new revenue and reach new audiences. Kate has held management roles in commercial departments at major UK institutions. Recent clients of The Revels Office and its network of consultants include UK Crafts Council, V&A Dundee, National Museum Wales, Arts Council Wales, Southwark Council, and Battersea Arts Centre – www.therevelsoffice.co.uk.
Marco Savo is Magazine Director of Audiovisual City, a digital magazine that promotes and supports audiovisual artists and events worldwide.
Sian Shaw – Digital Learning Manager, Westminster Abbey
Sian Shaw is the Digital Learning Manager at Westminster Abbey. Since August 2019, she has developed a digital learning programme from scratch for the 1,000-year-old church, which is designed to help students, teachers and families engage with the Abbey, regardless of their location. Sian has previously worked as a Web Content Developer for the British Library Learning Team and in a number of roles at TES Global, including Content Producer and Ecommerce Manager. Sian is on the DLNET committee and volunteers as a GEM mentor, as part of a personal mission to help colleagues in the sector improve their digital literacy and build digital confidence.
Martin Spellerberg & Grace Pool – Principal & Researcher, Spellerberg Associates
Presenter Marty Spellerberg is principal at Spellerberg Associates, which provides consulting to artists, museums, and cultural institutions. He has been designing and developing websites in the arts and culture space since the 1990s. He has specifically focused on digital projects for museums for more than a decade. He is director of Spellerberg Projects, a contemporary art project space in rural Texas.
Co-author Grace Pool is a researcher at Spellerberg Associates. She has worked at MoMA and the Brooklyn Museum. She holds an MS in Museums and Digital Culture from Pratt University, New York.
Gavin Willshaw – Digitisation and Digital Engagement Manager, University of Edinburgh; Sara Thomas, Scotland Programme Coordinator, Wikimedia UK
Gavin Willshaw is the Digitisation and Digital Engagement Manager at the University of Edinburgh and was previously the Mass Digitisation Service Manager at the National Library of Scotland, where he led the Library’s Scottish Chapbook Wikisource project. At the University of Edinburgh he is responsible for the digitisation of and engagement with the Library’s rare and unique heritage collections.
Dr Sara Thomas is the Scotland Programme Coordinator for Wikimedia UK, and was previously Wikimedian in Residence for both Museums Galleries Scotland, and the Scottish Library and Information Council.
Nathan Wilson – Head of Innovation, YourTour
Nathan Wilson is Head of Innovation at YourTour. Nathan’s background is in academic research and teaching. He studied engineering at Cambridge University (graduating with first class), spent a further 4 years as a postgraduate researcher at Warwick University (working in the field of sustainable water engineering) and supervises engineering students to this day.
Nathan has been working as an innovation lead within the computer software and technology startup industry for the past 5 years. He is highly skilled in business innovation, strategy and marketing and is responsible for designing customer research and interpreting the results, ensuring our projects have the maximum impact.