a selection of
interviews and media hits
Blockwell Consulting, LLC was chosen to participate in the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses 2024 program cohort where we’ll learn how to supercharge our impact and growth. We are so thankful for this opportunity to be part of this thriving community and cannot wait to dig in!
“Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy, employing almost half of all U.S. workers and representing 99.9% of U.S. businesses. For over a decade, Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses has helped thousands of entrepreneurs grow their businesses and create jobs in their communities.” - Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses
2021
award: the 2021 dcfemtech awards for data
The DCFemTech Awards recognize Power Women in Code, Design, and Data based in the Washington, DC region. Nominated by their community, these women are working in the trenches of tech to help their company or organization achieve success, sometimes entirely behind the scenes.
Dr. Megan Gall was one the 2021 DCFemTech award recipients!
March 2020
Interview: “The Fight to Ensure Full Equality at the Ballot Box: An Interview with Dr. Megan Gall” by matilda young
For the Human Rights Campaign
“A century ago, the United States ratified the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote. Now, 100 years later, women-identified leaders like Dr. Megan Gall, Sherrilyn Ifill, Kristen Clarke and Stacey Abrams are carrying forward the legacy of early suffrage leaders by fighting to ensure that all of our votes are counted and that all people have access to the ballot box -- including LGBTQ people.
For Dr. Gall, voting rights work is very much intersectional, particularly in terms of LGBTQ equality. “One of the things that has always struck me about the queer community is that as a group of minorities, we’re the only group of minorities where members of our community belong to every other community on earth. Because of that intersectionality, when we work on voting rights for other large marginalized communities, [LGBTQ people] are swept into what we’re doing because we are in all other groups.” - Matilda Young
2018
interview: “maps and mappers of the 2020 geohipster calendar: megan gall, June” For GeoHipster.com
Q: Tell us about yourself.
A: I started my career as a shovelbum, digging holes and mapping Fort Ancient Indian villages in West Virginia. We used survey equipment to inform the hand drawn maps, but one day I went into the office and someone had turned my hand drawn map into an image on a computer. My imagination caught fire. I’ve been a sociologist since I was 5 years old, noting and questioning patterns I saw in the ways humans behave and organize themselves. I knew that GIS would give me a foundational set of hard skills to build a career doing what interested me most — thinking about and studying group behavior. I looked for people who were using maps to study living people and current problems, and I found critical mentorship in them.
Since then I’ve used spatial analytics to research and inform policy makers and non-profit groups on issues around homelessness, justice reform and crime, education inequality, housing discrimination, and historical predicates of current racial and ethnic inequality. I’ve been working in voting rights for years now. I draw maps for redistricting, but that’s only a sliver of what spatial folks can do in this field. I use spatial analyses to support the work of the civil rights lawyers ensuring compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965. I use the same types of analyses to support the work of advocates who want to understand voting and demographic patterns.
We need more spatially-minded people working on civil rights and social justice issues. This is a serious issue throughout the civil rights space but is particularly acute in voting rights. I invite folks who are either starting or re-inventing their careers to think about contributing their skills and considering this path. Please reach out to me if you want to explore ideas, ask questions about the nitty gritty of the work, or just chat about this type of spatial work. I’m always happy to talk shop.
Q: Tell us the story behind your map (what inspired you to make it, what did you learn while making it, or any other aspects of the map or its creation you would like people to know).
A: One day a friend asked me for a map of Prince shows. This was obviously a great idea. I’d used the final data set for several iterations of a Tableau viz (the latest, not quite done version here), but I also wanted to use these data for a static image because it presents new and interesting challenges for visualization. I’d been working with these data for years now, so this was a new take on how to use them. The GeoHipster calendar seemed like the perfect impetus and avenue for that goal.
April 2018
interview: "data scientists help courts grapple with increasingly divisive maps" by Mark Walsh
For the ABA Journal
“There was also “Geometry of Data: Algorithmic Approaches to Gerrymandering” by Solomon of MIT. And also “The Quantitative Anatomy of a Voting Rights Case,” by Megan Gall, then the staff social scientist of the Lawyers’ Committee and now with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
“As one of my lawyer colleagues likes to say, ‘You have to get a little bit math-y,’ in tackling gerrymandering issues, Gall told the workshop.”
8/27/2017
Interview: "What I learned at gerrymandering summer camp: why math may - or may not - save us elections" by Issie Lapowsky
Megan Gall oversees a hackathon during a week-long conference on gerrymandering at Tufts University. As the in-house social scientist at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Gall crunches the numbers that underpin the committee's voting rights cases. Photo by M. Scott Brauer for WIRED
For Wired Magazine
“As the chief social scientist at the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Gall crunches the numbers that underpin the committee’s voting-rights cases. Since 2013, when the Supreme Court rolled back a critical piece of the Voting Rights Act that required some states and jurisdictions to clear changes to voting practices with the federal government, the committee has been flooded with alerts about potential instances of race-based gerrymandering. The racial impact is crucial because the Supreme Court only considers a district improperly gerrymandered if it discriminates against a racial or ethnic group.
Gall typically works on five to 10 cases at a time, digging into the data to look for signs of racially polarized voting, crucial to showing a map is discriminatory. That often requires compiling a decade’s worth of data on a district’s changing borders, the demographics of the voting-age population, voter turnout, and election results. She then uses a mathematical model to estimate how many votes a candidate received from different racial groups. If, say, candidates overwhelmingly preferred by black voters have never been elected over a decade, Gall says, that’s a red flag for the courts.
Finding those red flags isn’t easy, however. For one thing, individual votes are secret, so understanding a racial group’s preferences rests largely on demographic data about the residents of a neighborhood. Then the necessary data is often not easily available or available in one place. “That sort of data hunt can be so difficult and still turn up no data,” she says.
Which is why Gall’s eyes widen when she talks about how technology could make her job a little easier. “In a magical world, where I had all of that information by state,” she says, holding her hands in front of her as if hovering over a crystal ball, “it would give me an analytic edge.”
Which brings up a critical question: If mathematicians agree on how to draw fairer maps, or if the hackathon attendees build tools to make that process easier, who will use them? If both Democrats and Republicans take to their bunkers in 2021 to redraw maps in their favor, who will listen to the do-gooders with the fancy equations and sophisticated algorithms?” - Issie Lapowsky
Gall has a simple answer: “The courts. The courts are the ones that are going to care.”
January 17, 2017
We are finalists in the Knight Foundation Cities Challenge! Check out the announcement and an interview about the project.
“Comic-style illustrative maps, infographics and bite-sized content to graphically educate young people about Philadelphia’s locally elected offices and their relevance to everyday life. Their project, according to Megan Gall, targets public high school seniors in a district where the school system population is 50.5% African American.
‘African American youth have taken to the streets to exercise their First Amendment rights in cities across the nation. We expect our project to reach a large number of African American students,’ Gall said. ‘We want Philadelphia’s African American youth to understand what’s at stake in each local election and understand the power of their participation.’”
May 17, 2016
Letter to the Editor: Ways to avoid gerrymandering by megan gall
“Each of the neglected redistricting principles plays an important role.”
- Dr. Megan Gall
February 28, 2016
map: During this election season, black political power still not fully realized by jennifer patin
“To honor the legacy and sacrifices of Dr. King, and of so many other heroes who gave their lives to secure the franchise for African-Americans, voters today should take every opportunity to exercise their fundamental right to the ballot. Just imagine the impact if voters mobilized for every election the way they did in 2008 and 2012, when Black voters elected and re-elected their overwhelming candidate of choice to the nation’s highest office. Through increased turnout, Black voters specifically can prove that one’s vote, from a small municipal election to a major presidential race, matters.” - Jennifer Patin
Interview based on my University of Denver Masters Thesis. You can learn more here.
“Gall’s analysis showed that there was no significant difference between crime rates before and after the passed. Displacing the homeless doesn’t seem to reduce crime. Gall sees the results as evidence that laws need to be crafted more carefully. ‘The base question is, are we fixing things at a systemic level?’ she says. ‘And if we’re not, then we’re not fixing the problem - we’re applying a Band-Aid.’”
