MEREDITH ROBERTS

As a multimedia journalist, I combine elements of design and animation with the necessity of journalism for the public. My goal is to create space for stories that are accessible, easy to understand, and visually appealing, ensuring they can reach as many people as possible. Whether that means designing and creating videos for social media, or following a grassroots approach of meeting people where they're at, I want to inform those who need information the most.

At the University of Texas at Austin, I am a Radio-Television-Film and journalism double major. In high school, one of my greatest interests was animation. Naturally, I wanted to pursue this in my college career, and I entered my freshman year with a single focus in film. As I became more familiar with my surroundings, journalism piqued my interest as a medium of self-expression and service to the greater good.

At UT, there is little overlap between film and journalism beyond a documentary class or two. Animation classes teach students about the narrative animation industry, and multimedia journalism classes focus on broadcast or short documentaries. In short, I am largely self-taught. I've developed my animation and design skills through persistent trial and error, and I use the same approach for everything I've learned. It started with stop-motion animation and Adobe Photoshop years ago, and now I've applied and succeeded with the same formula to learn Adobe After Effects, Figma and data analysis like R.

In the future, I want to continue creating and reporting with video, either live-action documentaries or with animated elements. Beyond video, data analysis and visualization is another focus I'd love to explore. I hope to use my animation and illustration skills to make data analysis more compelling and easy to understand in multiple mediums, not just digitally.