Chris Callaghan is the founder of PolicySpark. With training in the physical and biological sciences, Chris’s early career combined field ecology and applied environmental problem-solving: biodiversity and wildlife monitoring, lake capacity modelling, urban ecology, and multidisciplinary ecosystem recovery work. He later held federal roles focused on ecosystem management, environmental information/data integration, and environmental compliance systems—before moving into public-sector audit/evaluation and, ultimately, a long consulting track supporting evidence, performance, and decision systems across government and the social sector.

Today, he leads PolicySpark’s work at the intersection of evidence synthesis, systems modelling, and decision support—using modern methods to make complex work faster, more transparent, and more useful to decision-makers. He combines machine reading and machine learning with AI-assisted workflows, human-in-the-loop review, and stakeholder consultation to build traceable system maps and pathway portfolios from large evidence sets. He then translates that work into briefing-ready outputs teams can use to prioritize, coordinate, and validate action in real-world policy and program environments.