Meet the 2021 SIG Chairs!

Thank you for participating in the 2020 Annual SIG Chairs Elections! Join me in congratulating all of the SIG Chairs reelected for the 2021 term and in welcoming five newly elected Chairs who’ll be joining this amazing group of community leaders and volunteers to co-lead the SIGs this year: Rachael Winter Durant, Chelsea Shannon, Tristan Roddis, Gregory Castillo, and Susan Wigodner. Congratulations to all!

Eric Longo, Executive Director


Data & Insights SIG

Chair: Katherine Nip, Manager, Digital Services at the Art Gallery of Ontario (reelected)

Katherine is a digital strategy professional with over 15 years in corporate, higher education, and non-profit sectors. She is currently the Manager, Digital Services at the Art Gallery of Ontario, providing direction and technical expertise to manage the operations and delivery of digital products and services across the gallery. A graduate in information systems analysis and math, trained in project management and Six Sigma Green Belt certified, she enjoys working in the trenches with numbers. In a former role, Katherine has led Google Analytics campaigns to inform search, marketing, measurement and optimization of websites. Although, not a self-proclaimed expert in data and insights, she is interested in learning and advancing ways to leverage data to tell stories, convert data to actions and develop data-driven decision making organizational cultures.

Co-Chair: Chris Unitt, Founder, One Further (reelected)

Chris Unitt is the founder of One Further, a digital analytics and user research agency in the UK. He works with organizations that want to figure out how to gain a better understanding of their online audiences and how best to serve them. He has a particular specialism in Google Analytics (along with Google Tag Manager and Data Studio), both in terms of technical implementation and extracting insights from the data. Chris has worked with cultural organizations for over a decade, from involvement in a wide range of projects to holding board positions. In the museum sector more specifically, Chris currently works with the British Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, Royal Academy of Arts, Tate, and Royal Museums Greenwich among others. Outside of work (bit still on a work-related theme), Chris publishes the Cultural Digital email newsletter, rounding up tech developments in the cultural sector, speaks at conferences, and occasionally blogs at chrisunitt.co.uk.


Digital Asset Management SIG

Chair: Rachael Winter Durant, Head of Digital Assets & Collections Information Systems, Portland Art Museum (newly elected)

Rachael Winter Durant oversees the day-to-day administration and strategic development of the Digital Assets Management System (DAMS), Collections Management System (CMS), and Online Collections. She promotes standards and procedures that enable people and institutions to engage digitally with cultural objects in the present and into the future. To advance this engagement, she focused her early career in librarianship on digital accessibility, the description of visual resources, and digital preservation.

Rachael earned her Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Washington and began working as the Digital Assets Manager at PAM in July 2017. Prior to her position at PAM, she wrangled assets and institutional histories at an independent, global creative agency and an arts education nonprofit, studied and practiced technical writing, and supported nonprofit fundraising campaigns through project management and data programming. She recently oversaw PAM’s migration to a new DAMS, and is currently evolving workflows to allow the Museum to move towards an open access image policy and IIIF implementation. 

Co-Chair: Jessica Herczeg-Konecny, Digital Asset Manager, Detroit Institute of Arts (reelected)

Jessica Herczeg-Konecny is the Digital Asset Manager at the Detroit Institute of Arts. After undergraduate work in English and American Culture Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, Jessica obtained a master’s degree in Public History from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. She has been working in the museum industry for over ten years in archives, collections management, rights and reproductions, and digital asset management. Jessica implemented the DIA’s first-ever Digital Asset Management System, founded and chairs the Metadata and Digital Assets Standards Committee, supervises rights management, and trains users and content creators for the DAM.


Digital Imaging SIG

Chair: Ben Cort, Photographer, Digital Workflow and Color Expert (reelected)

Ben Cort graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology in 2011 with a degree in Professional Photographic Illustration and a minor in Imaging Systems. Upon moving to Portland Oregon that May, he began working as a freelance digital tech/lighting assistant in the commercial and advertising photography markets. He also began working at the Portland Art Museum where he was tasked with constructing and implementing an in-house digital photo studio, with associated workflows, processes and procedures. As responsibilities increased from the initial grant based funding, Ben came on full time in 2016 and was additionally tasked with exhibition documentation and working with Conservation to develop a conservation imaging workflow. Ben has expanded the studio’s capabilities to include UV/IR imaging, photogrammetry and RTI in addition to continually growing the traditional capture potential of the space. Ben remains committed to further developing the imaging program at PAM, and is active in several professional imaging organizations, as well as attending conferences, workshops and seminars on cultural heritage imaging.

Co-Chair: Christopher Ciccone, Photographer & Digital Asset Manager, North Carolina Museum of Art (reelected)

I have been a Collections Photographer at the North Carolina Museum of Art since 2000, and an MCN member since 2014. My current duties also include digital asset administration and I am a member of MCN’s DAM SIG. Prior to my museum tenure I worked in a variety of commercial photographic settings. Having experienced the industry transition from film to digital has given me a broad perspective on the challenges and opportunities in the field. Membership in the MCN Digital Imaging SIG has been extremely helpful to me in my profession and I am enthusiastic about contributing to its ongoing success. I’m particularly interested in encouraging more practical and technical imaging presentations at MCN conferences as well as facilitating ongoing engagement and collaboration between large and small institutions. I look forward to the opportunity to serve and will do my best to sustain the excellent leadership of our current Chairs.


Educational & Interpretive Media SIG

Chair: Kajva (Devon) Armstrong, Visitor Experience Associate and Exhibit Mentor, Boston Children’s Museum (reelected)

Kajva (Devon) Armstrong (they/them) is the current co-chair of the Educational and Interpretive Media SIG for MCN. They are a Visitor Experience Associate and Exhibit Mentor at the Boston Children’s Museum, and also serve on the Museum’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee. They also do freelance art installation and handling at the SOWA Artist’s Guild in South Boston, and are particularly involved in other areas of MCN. Aside from co-chairing the SIG this year, 2020 marks their 5th MCN as a conference attendee and volunteer, and their 2nd year as a conference committee member. They are excited to continue working on making the SIG better and a hub of all things #museumed as we move beyond COVID into 2021!

Co-Chair: Chelsea Shannon, Manager of Interpretation, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (newly elected)

Chelsea Shannon is the Manager of Interpretation at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She oversees a team that plans, produces, and evaluates the Museum’s interpretive resources including audio guides and digital interactive experiences. Chelsea is also the co-author of Photography: A 21st Century Practice, the new comprehensive introductory photography textbook from Routledge’s Focal Press.


Human-Centered Design SIG

Chair: Bora Sheshu, Head of UX, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (reelected)

Bora is the Head of user experience design at The Met. She’s a multi-disciplinary designer, storyteller and researcher, who focuses on creating audience-centered and data-driven experiences. She’s devoted to advancing user experience as a practice across the museum sphere. At The Met, she has successfully implemented audience development, usability testing, and design thinking across all digital initiatives as well as non-digital practices. She’s created the User Research Lab to conduct moderated and unmoderated testing, and integrating user testing into the design process. She’s passionate about big ideas and always aiming to represent the unspoken user voice. She seeks excellence in every aspect of her work with empathy and a strong sense of design. Since starting at The Met, she’s launched redesigns for The Met’s homepage, object page, and a new digital product, The Primer, that prepares visitors for their visit based on audience engagement. Her main effort this year is establishing a Design System that incorporates UX, visual design, and voice as part of a universal system across The Met’s digital experiences to include: website, media and e-commerce in an effort to establish consistency and user-centered system of components that reflect UX best practices. Prior to joining The Met, she lead user experience at HBC Digital and NBCUniversal.

Co-Chair: Cathy Sigmond, Senior Associate, RK&A (reelected)

Cathy Sigmond is a Senior Associate at RK&A, a research and evaluation consultancy that partners with organizations to achieve impact on audiences. Cathy’s mission is to help anyone and everyone– no matter their role or background– become a deeper, more evaluative thinker.  In her work as a strategist and researcher, she helps guide clients in centering their audiences’ voices and perspectives in all that they do.  Her recent projects range from leading design concept testing for a suite of new galleries and multimedia spaces at the National Air and Space Museum, to evaluation capacity building for the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, to assessing the impact of an equity-focused arts administration program at the Perez Art Museum Miami.  Cathy is passionate about sharing the value of evaluative thinking with others; she presents regularly at museum and design conferences and graduate programs, like the Fashion Institute of Technology’s Exhibition and Experience Design program and the Pratt Institute’s Museums and Digital Culture program.  Cathy is one of the founding members of the HCD SIG and has co-chaired the group since fall 2018.


Intellectual Property SIG 

Chair: Margaret McKee, Digital Asset Manager, The Menil Collection (reelected)

Margaret C. McKee is the Digital Asset Manager at the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas. Her department oversees rights and reproductions, and she co-authored the institution’s internal fair use policy. Previously, she worked in photographic and imaging services at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She holds an AA from Bard College at Simon’s Rock, a BAFA in Art History from the University of New Mexico, and an MS in Information Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. This spring she will complete a two-year term as co-chair of the Visual Resources Association’s Intellectual Property Rights Committee.

Chair: Evelin Heidel, Open GLAM initiative (newly elected)

Evelin Heidel (a.k.a. Scann) is a longtime member of Creative Commons, currently working at the Open GLAM initiative (http://openglam.org). She has worked in digital heritage, community digitization and intellectual property for the past ten years. Harvard Fellow at the Harvard Library Innovation Lab (2018), International Visiting Scholar at Washington College of Law, American University (2019).


Information Technology SIG

Chair: Janice Craddock, Information Technology Director, Amon Carter Museum (reelected)

As Director of Information Technology, Janice heads a department of three to provide technical support for about 120 staff. In her thirty years at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, she has seen firsthand how technology has changed, evolving into an increasingly vital role supporting the institutional mission—a change she has also witnessed during her twenty years involved with MCN. As IT SIG chair, Janice’s aim is to support new IT professionals and engage those with more experience in ongoing conversations about the fundamentals of IT operations and emerging technologies.

Co-Chair: Brian Dawson, Chief Digital Officer, Ingenium (reelected)

Brian is the Chief Digital Officer at the Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation, which also operates the Canada Aviation and Space Museum and the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum.  As CDO, Brian drives the development and implementation of the strategy for digital platforms, content, distribution and engagement throughout the organization, leading a team of information technology, digital media and exhibition specialists. Prior to joining the museum, Brian worked at Nortel Networks in telephony software development and process improvement. Brian holds a Bachelor of Computer Science from the Dalhousie University (Technical University of Nova Scotia) and a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Cape Breton. Brian is keen to help keep connections alive and conversations going through the year, with a regular rhythm of topic discussions, leverage tools such as the Basecamp platform more fully, and sounding out the SIG on additional ideas.


International Image Interoperability Framework SIG

Chair: Emmanuelle Delmas-Glass, Collections Data Manager, Yale Center for British Art (reelected)

Emmanuelle is currently the Collections Data Manager at the Yale Center for British Art, where she started working in 2006 as the Collections Catalog Specialist. In her current role, she oversees the creation of and access to the museum’s collections data. She plays the lead role in ensuring its intellectual and technical integrity. She identifies and implements new data standards and technologies to disseminate to as wide an audience as possible as well as to support the scholarly mission of the Center. She is currently the Secretary for the International Image Interoperability Framework, and has been an ICOM CIDOC board member since 2013. She previously worked at the Williams College Museum of Art and the Louvre Museum. She has a Master’s of Art History from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Co-Chair:  Tristan Roddis, Director of Web Development, Cogapp (newly elected)

Tristan is a web technologist with over fifteen years of experience working with museums and other cultural organizations. His is passionate about both technology and the way in which museum data can be represented and presented to users, which is why he is so interested in IIIF. He has been implementing IIIF standards for museums and archives for over five years, including large-scale implementations of three core APIs: Image, Presentation and Content Search. He has shared this knowledge via presentations and workshops at various conferences, including sessions at MCN (which he has attended six times). As co-chair he hopes to make sure that MCN members are aware of the possibilities and advantages of IIIF, as well as focusing on how members can get the help they need for implementing standards-compliant systems.


Media Production & Branding SIG

Chair: Ryan Waggoner, Creative Services Manager, Spencer Museum of Art (reelected)

Ryan Waggoner is a visual storyteller with a passion for art and museums. He is currently Creative Services Manager at the Spencer Museum of Art, leading a team of employees in video production, collection photography and graphic design. Waggoner is a graduate of the University of Kansas and the Getty Leadership Institute.

Co-Chair: Gregory Castillo, Multimedia Producer, Dallas Museum of Art (new elected)

Gregory Castillo is the Multimedia Producer at the Dallas Museum of Art since 2015. In his role at the museum he works as a photographer, videographer and editor, creating digital content that helps the DMA reach audiences across North Texas and beyond.

Prior to his work in museums, Castillo was a photojournalist at the Dallas Morning News and at the Miami Herald. An alumnus of Miami Dade College, he is the co-founder of the award-winning pop-up restaurant Croquette at the Dallas Farmers Market. A first-generation Cuban/Nicaraguan American, Gregory is a native of Miami, Fl. He lives in Garland, Texas with his wife Jessica and their two cocker-spaniels Bastion and Ella.


Social Media SIG

Chair: Emily Haight, Social Media Manager, New-York Historical Society (reelected)

Emily Haight is currently the Social Media Manager at the New-York Historical Society. Previously, Emily managed social media, e-communications, planned advertising, and designed and coordinated graphic materials at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. She also previously managed social media at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, collaborating and planning the museum’s #5WomenArtists social media campaign. She currently serves on the board of the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) Media & Technology Professional Network. She values cross-institutional collaboration through social media, sparking dialogue with online audiences and diverse communities, and creative uses of tech in museum spaces.

Co-Chair: Jonathan Munar, Director of Digital Media and Strategy, Art21 (reelected)

Jonathan Munar is the Director of Digital at Art21, heading the organization’s digital presence across Web, social media, and related platforms. Previously, Jonathan was a member of the Website department at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He has served on the board of the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) Media & Technology Professional Network and has been a presenter, guest lecturer, contributor, and panelist for organizations such as New York University, Baruch College, Art Dealers Association of America, Museum Computer Network, Museums and the Web, the New Media Consortium (NMC) Horizon Report, and the New York City ArtsTech Meetup.


Strategy SIG

Chair: Tricia Robson, Senior Project Manager of Digital, Education, Publications, Imaging, Libraries & Live Arts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (reelected)

Tricia Robson is a strategist and team lead with over a decade of experience in arts nonprofits and tech, specializing in cross-departmental project management, digital strategy and production, and art history. Tricia is the current Senior Project Manager for Digital, Education, Publications, Imaging, Libraries & Live Arts (DEPILL) at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she manages the implementation of key programs and initiatives, cross-departmental workflows, and strategic alignment across DEPILL groups. She previously served as Director of Digital Strategy at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), where she oversaw the strategy, content production, development, scheduling, and budgets for the museums’ chief digital channels. Prior to FAMSF, she worked at Google, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. She has her Masters in Contemporary Art History from the University of Colorado at Boulder and her Bachelors in Art History and English from the University of San Diego.

Co-Chair: Susan Wigodner, Manager of Exhibition Media, Obama Foundation (newly elected)

Susan Wigodner is a strategist and project manager focused on creating digital experiences for history museums, along with sustainable internal processes. Susan joined the Obama Foundation in 2019, and currently works on planning for the future Obama Presidential Center that will be built in Chicago. Prior to her current role, Susan managed digital projects for the Field Museum — including a website redesign in conjunction with the organization’s first rebrand in 20 years and the staff input/feedback strategy to match — and coordinated the development of interactives, media installations, and an audio guide/app for the opening of the National September 11 Memorial Museum in May 2014.

Susan holds an M.A. in museum studies from George Washington University and a B.A. in history and anthropology from Lehigh University. She loves digital project management tools, finding better ways to collaborate across teams and organizations, and when kids and pets pop up on video calls.


Don’t belong to a SIG yet? Want to join one or more? Signup forms are available on each SIG’s page, you can join as many SIGs as you like!