Fern Wickson presented with the 2022 Kelso High Decade Award

Ecologist, philosopher and political scientist Fern Wickson has been presented with the 2022 Kelso High Decade Award.

The title is given to a student who completed their secondary education at Kelso High more than 10 years ago and who has achieved outstanding success or excellence in their chosen field.

She follows the 2021 winner Reuben Bolt (who was the first person of Indigenous heritage to graduate with a PhD at the University of Sydney's Faculty of Health Sciences) and 2020 winner Dr Cameron Korb-Wells (a high achiever who applied for a job at Bathurst Base Hospital before he'd even received his HSC results).

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Following her graduation in 1994, Ms Wickson pursued her adolescent goal of studying at the Australian National University at Canberra, completing a double degree in arts and science in which she majored in political science and ecology.

She graduated both degrees with overall distinctions and went on to complete first-class honours in environmental politics at the University of Tasmania, then a PhD on the environmental regulation of genetically modified crops in the Environmental Governance faculty of the University of Wollongong.

Ms Wickson travelled abroad to continue her academic career, taking up a position as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Bergen in Norway in 2007.

The following year she became an associate professor in the centre.

From 2009 to 2020, Ms Wickson was the scientist and research group leader of the Ecology and Ethics Department of the Norwegian Institute of Gene Ecology.

Through her work, she took on the role of research professor and group leader of a transdisciplinary collaborative on responsible and sustainable bio technoscience.

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The group worked on things like advancing sustainable agriculture and how to understand the role that emerging biological technologies like genetically modified crops, DNA vaccines, or synthetic biology might play - if any - in advancing more sustainable food systems for the future and on public engagement in the development of emerging environmental technologies.

From 2012 to 2014, Ms Wickson was also a senior researcher at the University of Oslo.

In 2018, she was the scientific secretary for the North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission, where she co-ordinated the provision of scientific advice to the governments of Norway, Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands.

For small Indigenous communities in Greenland, whales and seals are hunted for food because it's the most sustainable source of protein to which they have access, the only source of livelihood available to them, and an important part of their cultural heritage and traditions.

Ms Wickson worked up until 2021 on ensuring that all hunts of marine mammals were sustainable according to sound scientific advice.

In 2019, Ms Wickson was engaged as the lead facilitator for the Homeward Bound Leadership initiative, which involved organising three weeks of training for 100 women from around the world who had careers in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine.

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Homeward Bound is a network of 10,000 women in science whose aim is to heighten the influence and impact of women in making decisions that shape the planet.

Ms Wickson's most recent career move in 2021 was to become the Professor of Ocean Leadership at the Arctic University in Norway, where her primary focus is research in environmental governance.

In her spare time, she also teaches yoga at her home on the banks of Kaldfjord in Northern Norway.

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