Dr. Fern Wickson is the Scientific Secretary of the North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (NAMMCO) and a Senior Advisor at GenØk Centre for Biosafety in Tromsø, Norway. She completed an interdisciplinary PhD across the natural and social sciences at the University of Wollongong in Australia on the environmental regulation of genetically modified crops and attained a first class Honours degree in Environmental Politics from the University of Tasmania.

Committed to a politics of ecological care, Wickson seeks to integrate environmental science, policy and philosophy with a particular specialisation in the governance of new and emerging technologies. With her transdisciplinary work she specifically aims to advance ecological and feminist ethics, sustainable agriculture and agricultural biodiversity conservation, responsible research and innovation and resilient socio-ecological futures. She is author of over 40 articles in peer-reviewed journals and co-author of the book Nano meets Macro: Social perspectives on nanoscale sciences and technologies (Pan Stanford Publishing: Singapore 2010).

Wickson has served as an expert delegate to the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) working group on the diverse conceptualisation of values in nature. She is also a member of the Norwegian Biotechnology Advisory Board and past president of the international Society for the Study of New and Emerging Technologies (S.Net) as well as former board member of the European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility (ENSSER). In 2018, she completed the Homeward Bound Global Leadership Program for Women in Science.

Selected publications

Wickson, F. (2016). Do We Care About Synbiodiversity? Questions Arising from an Investigation into Whether There are GM Crops in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. J Agric Environ Ethics, Vol 29: 787-811.

Wickson, F., Binimelis, R., Herrero, A. (2016). Should Organic Agriculture Maintain Its Opposition to GM? New Techniques Writing the Same old Story. Sustainability, 8(11), 1105.

Wickson, F., Preston, C.J., Binimelis, R., Herrero, A., Hartley, S., Wynberg, R., Wynne, B. (2017). Addressing Socio-Economic and Ethical Considerations in Biotechnology Governance: The Potential of a New politics of Care. Food Ethics, Vol 1(2): 193-199.