Following on from our last blog post, which re-introduced the MCG to you all, we thought we would go one step further and re-introduce the committee itself. You can find detailed profiles on each committee member on our website, through ‘The MCG Committee’ page. This blog post, however, should give you a brief introduction to some of the established, active committee members, as well as the new faces (including myself).
Dr Mia Ridge, MCG Chair
Mia is a Digital Curator at the British Library, where she supports innovative ways of exploring and accessing the Library’s collections. Mia’s PhD investigated the impact of digital technologies on historical research. She has also worked at the Science Museum, Museum of London and Melbourne Museum.
Katherine Biggs, Treasurer
Katherine took over the role of MCG Treasurer in 2016, having been MCG Secretary since 2014. As her day job she is the digital project manager for the new Exploration Wing at the National Maritime Museum, opening in 2018. Prior to this she worked across all six of Historic Royal Palaces’ sites, specialising in engaging audiences with culture and heritage through digital technology. This included large-scale, interactive 360 degree experiences at family festivals, a recent MOOC on the FutureLearn platform and app-based digital missions for children. Katherine also co-managed the British Museum’s Samsung Digital Discovery Centre and its digital learning programmes aimed at families and young audiences.
Jessica Suess, Secretary
Jess is the Digital Partnership Manager at Oxford University Museums and leads on digital and evaluation in the Museums Partnership Team. The Partnership Team coordinates collaborative activity across the University’s four museums, often acting as a ‘guerrilla unit’ to identify and seize high impact opportunities. Jess’ particular interests are ‘in gallery’ digital engagement, accessibility challenges and audience segmentation.
Rebecca Atkinson
Rebecca is the online publications editor at the Museums Association. She edits the monthly online publication Museum Practice, writes for Museums Journal, and programmes the MA’s annual programme of one-day conferences as well as the early careers conference Moving On Up. She is also part of the MA’s Conference & Exhibition panel.
Martin Bazley
Following 7 years’ teaching and a year in publishing, Martin worked for 7 years as Online Projects Manager in the Learning Unit at the Science Museum, London and then for 3 years as E-Learning Officer at SEMLAC (later MLA South East). Often working with one or more associates, Martin undertakes a variety of projects for small, medium and large museums, archives and other heritage organisations and agencies, involving planning and development of digital projects such as websites and digital resources, user testing, audience research, evaluation and consultancy, always with a particular focus on making things work well for users and stakeholders. Martin is a regular presenter and he provides training on a range of topics including design, development and evaluation of online resources and learning opportunities based on digital technology within the cultural sector. He also acts as Mentor and Monitor for HLF digital projects.
Georgina Brooke
Georgina studied classics at St Hilda’s College, Oxford. Since graduating, she has pursued a career in digital – initially for agencies in Soho, London and Singapore, where she specialised from digital project management into digital content strategy and data analysis. On returning to the UK and to Oxford she worked for the University’s Public Affairs Directorate where she launched “research in conversation” – a series of interviews with academics from different disciplines looking at broadly interesting topics, such as how to live a happy life, what makes us human and our changing relationship with information. Georgina currently works at the Ashmolean Museum where she is in charge of relaunching the website in parallel with re-envisaging all the web content and introducing a culture of digital knowledge across the Museum administration.
Sarah Cole
Sarah is Director at TIME/IMAGE and ‘Creative Geek’ for the cultural heritage sector. As a creative consultant she does all sorts of stuff, from managing film archive digitisation for the British Council, to running pop-up exhibitions, to making an innovative geo-curation app for the British Library as Creative Entrepreneur-in-Residence. Sarah also has one foot firmly in video games, developing experimental VR projects and supporting playful events. She also makes brooches from CC-licensed historical artworks under the Badgical Kingdom brand.
Michael Guthrie
Michael is a founder of KnowledgeArc, a managed archive and content management service for the Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museum sector as well as institutional Open Access repositories for academic and NGO/IGO organisations. Previous to KnowledgeArc, Michael has been producing digital projects since 1996 in New York and the UK.
Dafydd James
Dafydd leads the New Media department at Amgueddfa Cymru — National Museum Wales, which is responsible for developing digital content for all seven national museums in Wales. After gaining a Physics degree and an MSc in Multimedia Engineering, Dafydd began work as e-Learning Officer based at St Fagans: National History Museum. He developed various websites, Learning resources and exhibition displays before moving to his current role as Head of New Media. Dafydd is currently responsible for coordinating the department’s activities and implementing the organisation’s strategic initiatives in digital media. He is chair of the Technology Strand for People Collection Wales and a Trustee for Audiences Wales.
Andrew Lewis
Andrew is Data and Insights Architect at the Natural History Museum London, where he leads on data strategy and architecture for business-intelligence insights. Previously, he was Digital Content Delivery Manager at the Victoria and Albert Museum, responsible for the technology and data integration used to deliver the V&A’s digital content on web and mobile. Before moving into the museum sector, he was responsible for developing online, physically-delivered and automated digital information services in public libraries.
Sarah Middle
Sarah is in the first year of a PhD at the Open University, looking at the integration of Linked Data resources with Humanities research, particularly in disciplines relating to the Ancient World. Before returning to study, Sarah worked in various academic library roles, most recently as Repository Manager at Cambridge University Library.
Brian Moss
Brian is a PhD. Candidate in the Department of Media, Culture & Heritage, formerly the International Centre for Culture & Heritage Studies (ICCHS) at Newcastle University. Brian’s primary area of interest is in Mobile Digital Interpretations (MDIs) in the outdoor heritage context, but this extends into areas such as digital interpretations for museum and gallery settings, location-based services, GIS and social media. He is particularly interested in the effective deployment of smartphone technology within the museum and heritage sector and the subsequent influence this has on the embodied sensuous experience.
Ina Pruegel
Ina leads, promotes and publicises the strategic development of the Cambridge University Museum’s digital capacity, to connect audiences with collections through digital technologies. She previously worked as Digital Project Manager at Historic Royal Palaces, where she developed digital products and learning experiences. Work included on-site apps, iBeacons, augmented reality, immersive story experiences, projections and 360 filming.
Tiana Tasich
In her long career spanning over 15 years of working at the intersection of culture and digital technologies, Tiana has worked with a range of cultural organisations including Tate, the Southbank Centre, and the Design Museum. Tiana is currently the interim Head of Digital, at The Royal Institution.
Alec Ward
Alec works for the London Museum Development team, based at the Museum of London. With his role as Museum Development Officer: Digital and Communications, Alec manages the Digital Futures training programme. Within the training programme he delivers and facilitates a number of different digital based courses for London’s museums, from social media strategy to filming and editing videos.