Her Story
About Megan
I've been involved in multimedia content creation, web development, and digital operations since high school when I started making encoding layouts for MySpace. Over the years, I've worked across many industries including media and entertainment - I even wrote music for a subsidiary label of Universal Republic while working at a Victoria's Secret warehouse in Columbus. I've always held regular jobs while pursuing these creative and technical passions because I didn't want to be a starving artist, especially coming from a small Appalachian village of 1,300 people where opportunities are limited. Last year, I decided to take things further by registering an actual business and enrolling at University of the People, a tuition-free accredited online school where I'm studying computer science and maintaining a 4.0 GPA. I also launched the Girl Ben Elohim experiment, a performance art project that continues Richard Dawkins' 1970s memetics experiments by testing how information transmits and relates to math, Boolean algebra, and logic. Currently, I work as a pastoral assistant at a local Methodist church where I handle administrative work, set up PowerPoints and live streams, and am rebuilding their website. I help coordinate services for the unhoused community, providing daily showers, meals, laundry, and clothing. I'm also working as a project manager for an independent mathematician on a unified physics field theory project, helping with institutional stewardship and communications. I'm pursuing federal contracting through SAM.gov to create opportunities for traditionally disadvantaged groups. My goal is to stay in my community and make it a better place, helping other women see themselves differently and utilize their talents while documenting the rich history of this area, including the UNESCO World Heritage geometric earthworks left by the Indigenous Hopewell people.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Megan
01What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Just always believe in yourself, and don't discount yourself from anything. Don't compare yourself to other people, or think that you have to be XYZ in order to do XYZ. You can do it on your own, as long as you set your mind to it. It really is a mindset thing. And be grateful, even for the small things, even when life is falling apart. Even when things are really, really bad, find things, small things even, to be grateful for, because that's like the only way that you can maintain hope, I think, sometimes, and keep everything going. At least for me. I want other people to see that maybe they could see somebody like me and think, you know, if she could do it, I could do it too.
02What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I feel like the opportunities are endless. There's so many things I want to do, and life is actually very short. I have a hard time zeroing in and focusing and being like, okay, well, what am I gonna focus on next? I'm doing the federal contracting thing right now, which is my personal focus behind the scenes. The government always needs something, and you can get on SAM.gov and look at all the contracts they have open. It's stuff you wouldn't think - sometimes they just need you to find a place, an office for them to rent for 6 months. The barrier to entry is cost-free. You don't have to pay anything. They'll pay you if you can bid on some of these contracts and win. I wanted to teach other people how to do that kind of stuff, especially people from traditionally and historically disadvantaged groups in our country who are kind of displaced and turned away from these types of opportunities. The challenge part is sometimes you have to pick and choose, and sometimes you have to take a loss, even when you put some time and effort into setting something up that you thought you were gonna definitely have go through.
Join Influential Women and start making an impact. Register now.