Dr Megan Wong
ARDC (Planet), CeRDI Research Fellow
Dr. Megan Wong is a Research Fellow specialising in Soil and Environmental Data (PhD in Soil Ecology, Monash University) with the Centre for eResearch and Digital Innovation (CeRDI). From 2024 to 2025, she is seconded to the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) part-time.
Megan leverages her expertise in collaborative problem-solving and leadership to enhance the use of environmental data for research and to address cross-domain challenges, focusing on improving the meaning of data to support its utility and appropriate reuse.
Megan actively participates in national and international cross-domain workshops and symposia. For instance, she co-chairs the Australian Vocabulary Special Interest Group and is on the CODATA Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework (CDIF) Technical Working Group in 2025.
Through ARDC Planet Commons, Megan focuses on strategy for adopting information standards to enhance FAIR data and utility (FAIR Guiding Principles for Scientific Data Management and Stewardship)
Achievements with collaborators across academia, government and the private sector include:
- Policy and assessment tooling for enacting the FAIR Guiding Principles (Agricultural Research Data Federation);
- Soil data standards and their governance to enable data discovery and harmonisation (Australian National Soil Information System, Soil CRC Visualising Australia’s Soils systems);
- Collaboration on an Indigenous-led data project that addresses rights expression in metadata.
Megan’s diverse collaborative outputs include policies, recommendations, and datasets for data harmonisation, such as vocabularies.
Megan is also an Associate Member of Federation University’s Future Regions Research Centre .
Call: 03 5327 6536
Email: mr.wong@federation.edu.au
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2991-2308
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganwong1/
Qualifications
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Doctor of Philosophy - School of Biological Sciences, Monash University
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Bachelor of Science (Dean’s Honours) (Honours) - LaTrobe University
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Graduate Diploma of Education - LaTrobe University
- Journal papers
Wong, M., Levett, K., Lee, A., Box, P., Simons, B., David, R., MacLeod, A., Taylor, N., Schneider, D., & Thompson, H. (2022). Development and Governance of FAIR Thresholds for a Data Federation. Data Science Journal, 21. doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2022-013
Shackelford, N., Paterno, G.B., Winkler, D.E…Wong, M. et al. (2021). Drivers of seedling establishment success in dryland restoration efforts. Nature Ecology and Evolution. doi.org/10.1038/s41559-021-01510-3
Robinson, N., Dahlhaus, P.G., Wong, M., MacLeod, A., Jones, D., & Nicholson, C. (2018). Testing the publicāprivate soil data and information sharing model for sustainable soil management outcomes. Soil Use and Management, 35(1), 94-104. doi: 10.1111/sum.12472
Wong, S., Walker, J., Wheeler, L., & Wong, M. (2016). Decent training for decent work: Strengthening Employment Outcomes. Strategies to improve connections between Learn Local offerings and employment outcomes for learners. Pascal International Observatory. pascalobservatory.org/pascalnow/blogentry/strengthening-employment-outcomes-adult-and-community-education-rural-western-vi
Wong, S., Wong, I., Walker, J., Wheeler, L., & Wong, M. (2016). Learning locally: Better understanding the complexity and costs of service delivery in rural locations. Pascal International Observatory. pascalobservatory.org/pascalnow/blogentry/overcoming-challenges-delivering-adult-and-community-education-rural-south-west-
Wong, M.R., Morgan, J.M., Wong, N.K., & Cavagnaro, T.C. (2015). The incorporation of fungal to bacterial ratios and plant ecosystem effect traits into a state-and-transition model of land-use change in semi-arid grasslands. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 201, 11-19. doi: 10.1016/j.agee.2014.10.012
- Conference papers, presentations and abstracts
Wong, M., Dharmawardena, K., Cox, S., McEachern, S., Wyborn, L., & Brownlee, R. (2023). Vocabularies Across Domains and Cross-Domain Vocabularies: what are the burning issues for interdisciplinarity? eResearch Australasia, Brisbane, Australia.
McEachern,S., Cox, S., Brownlee, R., Wyborn L., Wong, M., Dharmawardena K. (2022). Scientific Vocabularies: needs, status, validity, governance and sustainability. SciDataCon-IDW Seoul 2022. CODATA and World Data Systems.
Wong, M., Cox, S. J., Gregory, L., Wilson, P. (2022). Governance and Maintenance considerations for FAIR vocabularies - Australian Soil Domain use case. In: Scientific Vocabularies: needs, status, validity, governance and sustainability. CODATA and World Data System SciDataCon-International Data Week, Seoul
Wong, M., MacLeod, A., Simons, B., Robinson, N., Gillett, H., Neyland, A., Milne, R., Corbett, J., & Dahlhaus, P. (2021, July 5-6). Enabling soil data re-use for ecosystem management and decision making: A standards-based approach [Conference presentation]. TERN Science Symposium, Online.
Wong, M., MacLeod, A., Simons, B., Robinson, N., Gillett, H., Sexton, A., Medyckyj-Scott, D., Thompson, H., Neyland, A., Milne, R., Corbett, J., & Dahlhaus, P. (2021, July 19-23). Maximising the value of soil data: Challenges and solutions we employed. Focus: User cases of farming grower groups and Catchment Management Authorities [Conference presentation]. ESIP Summer Meeting, Online.
Box, P., Wong, M., Simons, B., Levett, K., Lee, A., Thompson, H., Epstein, J., MacLeod, A. (2020). Building AgReFed: A reusable socio-technical design for community governance and data stewardship. Collaborative Conference on Computational and Data Intensive Science C3DIS 2020, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, 16-20 March 2020. www.c3dis.com/3939
Box, P.J., Levett, K; Simons, B., Wong, M. (2019) A governance and data stewardship framework for FAIR agricultural data: The Agricultural Research Federation (AgReFed) - an Australian research infrastructure case study. Conference proceedings CODATA: Towards Next-Generation Data-Driven Science. Bejing, 2019.
Levett, K., Wong, M., Box, P., Simons, B., Thompson, H., Macleod, A., David, R., Schneider, D., Watkins, D., Hergenhan, R., Gregory, L., Wilson, P., Taylor, N., Limmer, S., Gillett, H., Cox S. (2019) Implementing FAIR in the Agricultural Research Federation. eResearch Australasia Conference. Brisbane, Australia. 21-23 Oct 2019.
Robinson N., Dahlhaus P., Wong M., Corbett J., Cann M., Mitchell R., Fear D. and Orgill S. (2019) Farmers, advisors and researcher’s perceptions to soil organic matter. Soil Organic Matter in a stressed world. 7th International Symposium on Soil Organic Matter, 6 – 11 October 2019, Adelaide. Symposium Poster Abstracts, p.95.
Robinson N., Thompson H., Dahlhaus P., Feely P., MacLeod A., Wong M. & Walters J. (2019) What’s FAIR about Digital Agriculture? steeDA, Conference on science, technology, engineering and economics for Digital Agriculture, 3-5 December 2019, The University of Sydney, Australia.
Wills, B., Parker, J., Robinson, N., Wong, M. (2019). Improving the FAIRness of Australia’s grains research sector data. In: Cells to Satellites. J Pratley Ed. Proceedings of the 19th Australian Society of Agronomy Conference,25-29 August 2019, Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia © 2019. (https://www.agronomyaustraliaproceedings.org/ )
Dahlhaus, P.G., Simons, B., Wong, M., MacLeod, A., & Robinson, N. (2018). Making soils data FAIR: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable. SOIL: The key to the past, the present and the future. National Soils Conference, November 18th - 23rd, Canberra, Australia. Soil Science Australia.
Schefe, C.R., Grant, C.D., Dahlhaus, P., Robinson, N., Wong, M., Walker, R., Janik, L., Jones, D., & Fleay, B. (2018). Capturing in-paddock variability and the quest for spatial PAW prediction: a team sport. SOIL: The key to the past, the present and the future. National Soils Conference, November 18th - 23rd, Canberra, Australia. Soil Science Australia.
Wong, M., Gregory, L., Simons, B., Robinson,N., Cox, S. & Yu. J. (2018). Australian soil vocabularies: Availability and lessons learnt when using them to describe diverse soil data. Proceedings of the National Soil Science Conference, Canberra, ACT, 18 to 23 November 2018. Eds. Nilantha Hulugalle, Tapas Biswas, Richard Greene and Peter Bacon.
Wong, MR, Morgan JM, Cavagnaro TC (2011) Microbial community functional groups: Links to vegetation and ecosystem properties of semi-arid grasslands in south-eastern Australia. In Bornette, G. & Puijalon, S. (eds), 54th Symposium of the International Association for Vegetation Science: Abstracts. Université Lyon 1 Service Formation Continue et Alternance.
Wong, MR, Morgan JM, Wong, NK, Cavagnaro, TC (2012) If aboveground vegetation changes after abandonment, what happens belowground? A test of fungal to bacterial energy channel theory in native grasslands. Oral presentation, The Ecological Society of Australia, Hobart, Australia
Wong, MR, Morgan J.M, Wong, NK, Cavagnaro, TC (2010) Vegetation and soil food web responses to resource availability in a perennial tussock grassland, south-eastern Australia. Poster presentation, The International Association for Vegetation Science: Abstracts, Baja California, México
Wong, MR, Morgan, JM, Cavagnaro, TC (2008) A comparison of arbuscular mycorrhizal inoculum potential between two vegetation types of a Northern Plains Grassland of Victoria. Poster Presentation, The Ecological Society of Australia, Sydney, Australia
- Reports and other publications
Cox SJD, Wong MW, Wilson P, Gregory L. (2023) Information Model for ANSIS (Version 1.0). Australian National Soil Information System (ANSIS). (DOI in submission)
Brownlee, R., Cox, S.J.D., Dharmawardena, K., McEachern, S., Wong, M., Wyborn, L. (2022) Vocabulary Symposium. DOI: doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7824029 (Output type: Symposium report and content. All content in process of being uploaded at 14-04-2023)
Wong, M., & Cox, S.J.D. (2022) Soil Chemical Methods – Australasia (A machine readable RDF representation). Output type: Data model/vocabulary. Published 30 March 2022. Available at Research Vocabularies Australia: https://vocabs.ardc.edu.au/viewById/634
Dahlhaus, P., MacLeod, A., Medyckyj-Scott, D., Simons, B., Bahlo, C., Sexton, A., Thompson, H., Wong, M., Robinson, N., Milne, R., Neyland, A., Gillett, H., & Ollerenshaw, A. (2021). Visualising Australasia’s Soils: A Soil CRC Interoperable Spatial Knowledge System. Phase 1 (2019 – 2021). Project 2.3.001 Final Report. Cooperative Research Centre for High Performance Soils (Soil CRC). 119p. https://soilcrc.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/FINAL_REPORT_2_3_001_DAHLHAUS_FINAL.pdf
MacLeod, A., Wong, M., Gregory, L., Schneider, D., Williams, A., Castleden, I., Simons, B., Levett, K., & Box, P. (2020, May 13). The Agricultural Research Federation (AgReFed) Technical and Information Policy Suite (Version 1.0). Zenodo. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3993784
Wong, M., Box, P., Epstein, J., Lee, A., Thompson, H., Levett, K., Channon, J., Wilson, P., Taylor, N., Hergenhan, R., Berger, B., Gilliham, M. (2020, March 10). Agricultural Research Federation (AgReFed) Steering Policies, Roles and Responsibilities (Version 1). Zenodo. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3707046
Box, P., Levett, K., Simons, B., Wong, M. (2019). Guidelines for the development of a Data Stewardship and Governance Framework for the Agricultural Research Federation (AgReFed). Sydney: CSIRO; 2019.doi.org/10.25919/5cf179ba35db9
Wong, M., Box, P., Epstein, J., Lee, A., Thompson, H., Levett, K., Channon, J. (2019). Policy Suite for the enactment phase of the Agricultural Research Federation (AgReFed). Policies endorsed by the AgReFed Council at 10.10.2019.
Dahlhaus, P.G., Bennett, J.M., Corbett, J., Crawford, D., Grelet, G., Imhof, M., MacLeod, A., Mele, P.M., Stevenson, B., Wells, N., & Wong, M. (2018). A review of indicators of soil health and function: Farmers' needs and data management. Newcastle, Australia: Cooperative Research Centre for High Performance Soils, June 2018, 200p.
Wong, S., Wong, I., Walker, L., & Wong, M. (2014). Decent training for decent work: Strengthening employment outcomes (Strategies to improve connections between Learn Local offerings and employment outcomes for learners). Grampians ACFE Region Research Report 2014 . Ballarat, Australia: Pascal International Observatory.
Wong, S., Wong, I., Walker, J., Wheeler, L., & Wong, M. (2014). Learning locally: Better understanding the complexity and costs of service delivery in rural locations. Barwon South-West Adult, Community and Further Education Region Research Report 2014 . Geelong, Australia: Pascal International Observatory.
Wong, S., Wong, I., Bergin, C., Wong, M., & Lomnicki, I. (2014). Youth Now BiZE Centre Evaluation. Sunshine, Australia: Youth Now.
Wong, S., & Wong, M. (2014). YouthNow BizE Centre Evaluation - Scan of the Literature. Sunshine, Australia: Youth Now.
Wong, S., & Wong, M. (2014). Work's 4 Me Evaluation: Transitioning to training and employment program for people with disabilities in the City of Melton, Victoria. Sunshine, Australia: Youth Now.
Wong, S., & Wong, M. (2014). Work's 4 Me Evaluation: Scan of the Literature. Sunshine, Australia: Youth Now.
Wheeler, L., Wong, S., Wong, I., et al. (2013). Evaluation of the Transition Brokers Program. Hume Whittlesea Local Learning and Employment Network. Melbourne, Australia: Whittlesea Youth Commitment.