Project Advisors

  • Claire Greenwood

    Claire teaches Philosophy and Sociology and is Head of Humanities at Fairfield High School, a diverse, multi-cultural school in inner-city Bristol. Fairfield has a six-year-old relationship with Watershed, and Claire’s timetable was adapted so that she could spend one day a week at the venue, developing media projects for the pupils. Working with the media centre, she creates links with businesses and individuals keen to share their creative enthusiasm and knowledge.

    One of the most exciting projects Claire has worked on during her time at the Watershed is Danceroom Spectroscopy. Fairfield has collaborated with both the Watershed, and recently appointed Royal Research Fellow at Bristol University, Dr David Glowacki, to co-create an exciting learning experience for pupils, using state-of-the-art methods in both research chemistry and computer science to enable students to understand more about molecular science. Claire has been involved in the development of resources which will be available to use in schools.

  • Danaë Stanton Fraser

    Danaë is a Professor in Psychology at the University of Bath where she leads the CREATE Lab http://www.bath.ac.uk/psychology/research/castl/create-lab/. Her research interests include the design and evaluation of novel technologies for children’s learning and play. Danaë’s work is underpinned by a process of co-design with end users and industrial partners in the development and evaluation of technologies. Danaë has obtained grants from the EPSRC, ESRC, AHRC, charities and industry. She is currently an investigator on the AHRC REACT Hub; the EPSRC Being There project and the EPSRC SuperID project. She has published over seventy papers in high-impact international journals and conferences. Danaë has held joint research grants with industrial partners including: BBC, BT, Microsoft, Vodafone, IBM, ScienceScope, Nokia and HP.

  • Daniel Efergan and Jake Manion

    Dan and Jake are two Creative Directors working on the digital stuff at Aardman Animations.  This means they make a lot of games, build communities, and mess around in the murky bits between storytelling and interactivity.  Both hold play in the greatest regard, a deep appreciation on how powerful a tool it is to make the world a better place. 

  • Gary Pope

    Gary trained as an English teacher and led a department before taking a position with a Change Management agency as a facilitator and learning designer working with Eriksson, Thomson, Reuters, BA, Diageo and Disney.

    Whilst working for Disney In 1999, Gary realised the opportunity to create Kids Industries. Today KI works from offices in London and CapeTown with Random House, Egmont, Mattel, GSK, Kellogg, CPLG, DHX, eOne Entertainment, Warner Brothers, Al Jazeera and Disney amongst its clients.

    Gary is a speaker at conferences worldwide and writes many articles about the modern commercial environment of childhood. He is a children’s BAFTA Juror and the recipient of two IPA Special Awards for Strategy and Effectiveness.

    Over the last 18months he has led a cross-functional team to redevelop Al Jazeera’s 7-12 Children’s Channel into the 360 Integrated and multi-platform proposition JeemTV.and the redevelopment of Peppa Pig’s global digital presence including the creation of two Number 1 App Store apps.

    Gary maintains his interest in education as a school governor. 

  • James Richards, Director, Chromatrope

    James Richards is Director of Chromatrope, a multiplatform consultancy with a particular interest in strategy, innovation and special projects. James was previously a development executive for the BBC where he set up and ran both the Vision Multiplatform Product Development and Learning Development teams. He is interested in the creative applications of technology and the development of new narrative forms as a way to reach new or hard to reach audiences. James has produced projects on behalf of the BBC for TV, radio, online, interactive TV and pervasive media platforms.

    @kidhelios
  • James Touzel

    James is head of the Technology & Media Group at UK law firm TLT. He has been with TLT for over 14 years, throughout that time working with established and early-stage technology and media organisations. He is known for his work with digital media and mobile telecoms businesses, covering social networking, location based services and new media collaborations, where he advises on the contractual, intellectual property and privacy issues. He also deals with technology development and licensing arrangements, IT procurements and managed service solutions. James is actively involved in the development of early-stage media businesses and the related support networks. He is a trustee of Watershed Arts Trust Limited and non-executive chair of iShed CIC, who have a mission to pioneer innovation and new technologies in the creative industries. He is also a member of Science City Bristol.

  • Keiron Kirkland

    Kieron is the Development Research Manager for Nominet Trust http://www.nominettrust.org.uk/ , a social investor which funds and supports projects that use digital technology to develop new and disruptive approaches to social challenges.

    Previously he was a Learning Researcher for Futurelab, where he led a number of digital programmes on games based learning and young people's rights and entitlements. Before this, he developed and delivered education programmes as the Practitioner-in-Residence for Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, ran cognitive behavioural programmes for adult and young adult offenders with the National Probation Service and worked as a teacher in China.

    He’s also a professional magician, member of the Magic Circle, and was Magician-in-Residence at Pervasive Media Studio in 2013, creating new ways that Magic and technology could be integrated. http://www.watershed.co.uk/ished/projects/kieronkirkland/ Yes, it was as good as it sounds.

  • Kim Plowright, Freelance Product/Project Manager

    Kim has been working on projects where the internet, games and 'old' media fight like excitable kittens in a sack since before the last dot com crash. Most recently, she's produced/project managed Pepys Road for Storythings/Faber&Faber and Dreams of Your Life for Hide&Seek/Film4, a Bafta-nominated cross-platform... story... game-y... thing about dying alone involving bespoke software, a brilliant writer, a 3-day time-lapse photographic location shoot, and a (real) cat up a scaffolding tower. She has also worked on the cross-platform elements for the first series of Misfits for E4, Superme, Routesgame and a treasure hunt for the band Muse. She suspects she's one of the few people in the world who has converted a 20 year old corrupted Amiga word processing file in to an ebook (by hand). She is happy to think of herself as the doozer to the creative lead's fraggle, helping to fill out the architectural detail in creative storytelling ideas to make them buildable in code.

    @mildlydiverting
  • Mark Leaver

    In his 20+ years experience across the media industries two key themes have categorised Mark’s career, whether working on a dot com start up or for a national broadcaster: the combination of content and emerging digital technologies; and the connection of creative business to international markets.

    As an independent consultant and producer Mark is now pursuing new opportunities which explore the evolution of the media landscape in a digital age, and the potential offered to the UK creative industries across a globalised economy.

    In addition to work with the Pervasive Media Studio, Mark’s other clients include UK Trade & Investment for whom he works as a specialist adviser on the creative and digital media industries, assisting and advising international businesses to make investments and grow their presence in the UK marketplace.

    @mark_leaver
  • Sharna Jackson

    Sharna is Director: Creative and Content at Hopster, the TV and Learning platform for 2-6 year olds where preschoolers can watch, play and grow in a safe, ad-free environment. Before joining Hopster, Sharna was the Editor of Tate Kids for six years where she developed brand and content strategies, and launched the site in 2008. Her focus was on play -  digital toys and games. Tate Kids won the Best Youth Website Webby in 2009 and is a triple Children’s BAFTA nominee with nods in the Animation, Learning Primary and Interactive categories. The Wondermind project was a finalist in the 2012 SXSW Interactive and Webby Awards and won two Lovies.

    Prior to Tate, she worked at an educational communications agency where she produced resources for companies including E.ON and Cadbury.  She had her own children’s content creation company, Seahorse, where she consulted on digital learning projects for clients including Renault, Birds Eye and Morrisons. She created IP independently and with digital agencies, publishers and start-ups.

    Sharna is a community governor at a primary school in Rotherhithe, South London, and is attempting to start a play-based school in Hackney, East London.  She has a PgDip in Media Culture and Communication from the Institute of Education, University of London.

    @sharnajackson

Produced by iShed as part of the Sandbox Programme