Megan Watson is passionate about good design and using technology to enable informed decision making. She is focused on user-centered design, data visualisation, information connectivity and breaking away from traditional methods of publishing government reports. She is the product owner of State of the Environment Digital and is the digital strategist and visionary responsible for converting the 900+ page printed national State of the Environment report into an online, interactive platform.
The State of the Environment report is a national-scale assessment of the condition, pressures, risks and outlook for the Australian environment. The report is authored by independent experts and covers nine thematic areas. The 2016 report had 18 lead authors, 500+ contributors, 22 peer reviewers, 156 interactive maps, 210 interactive graphs, 344 downloadable datasets and 1166 data-visualised graded assessments.
Megan has a background in web design and development, spatial information and media production (and a few other things). She has worked in the private, NGO and government sectors with the last 16 years in Federal Government in information and knowledge management roles. Megan managed the Department of the Environment and Energy’s web team before moving into State of the Environment reporting in 2010.
She's also happy to talk about beer brewing, astrophotography and the highs and lows of learning the mandolin (from the mandolin comment it's safe to assume she doesn't have a favourite member of One Direction).