Christina Hicks

Christina Chemtai Hicks is a British Kenyan environmental social scientist who is a Professor in the Political Ecology group at Lancaster University. She is interested in the relationships between individuals, societies and nature. She was awarded the 2019 Philip Leverhulme Prize for Geography.

Professor Christina C. Hicks
Born	1980 (age 43–44) Kenya
Nationality	Kenyan, British, Australian
Occupation	Professor
Years active	2013-
Spouse	Professor Nick Graham
Children	3
Awards	Pew Trusts Marine Fellow, Leverhulme Prize
Academic background
Alma mater	James Cook University
Thesis	Ecosystem service values and societal settings for coral reef governance (2013)
Doctoral advisor	Terry Hughes, Josh Cinner
Academic work
Discipline	Environmental Social Science
Sub-discipline	Environmental Economics, human geography, ecosystem services
Institutions	Lancaster University Stanford University
Main interests	Artisanal fishing and livelihoods, seafood nutrition, coral reef fishing communities

Early life, education and career

Hicks was raised for most of her childhood in East Africa, and the UK. She earned her undergraduate degree in engineering at Oxford Brookes University, and a Masters at Newcastle University where she studied tropical coast management. She completed her doctoral research at the James Cook University Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies. After earning her doctorate, Hicks moved briefly to Stanford University, where she joined the Center for Ocean Solutions before moving to a lectureship at Lancaster University in 2015.

Research contributions

Hicks studied the health of global coral reefs. She showed that the coral reefs that have healthy ecosystems were in remote areas with low fishing pressure and locations where there were high levels of local engagement with local marine management. On the other hand, places with poor fisheries governance, intensive capture and a recent history of environmental disaster have worse performing coral reefs.

As global diets move to become more healthy and sustainable, "blue foods" such as fish can have low environmental impacts and are rich in micronutrients. Hicks was interested in the injustices in the production, distribution and consumption of so-called "blue foods". In 2019, Hicks was awarded an ERC Starting Grant to investigate micronutrient variability amongst fish in tropical Africa. She is interested in the impact of fishing pressure, food insecurity and climate changes on these nutrient concentrations, as well as how nutrient concentrations impact social processes. She demonstrated that the nutrients in local fish were more than enough to treat people with malnutrition, but that the catch was often not accessible to people most in need. She has argued that instead of increasing revenue from fish exports, policy is required to ensure that local communities benefit from seafoods. Hicks believes that to effectively combat ecological destruction, efforts must be made to promote a healthy planet and also a just society.

Hicks appeared in the Netflix documentary Seaspiracy, but criticised the film for being misleading.

Recognition

• 2024 Pew Trust Marine Fellow
• 2019 Philip Leverhulme Prize for Geography

Personal

Hick's mother came from a remote village on the mountainous Kenya-Uganda border and had had a career in education for development, and her father is British.Most of her extended family live in Kenya. Hicks is married to the marine ecologist Prof. Nick Graham, also of Lancaster University, and has three sons.

Selected publications

• Natalie C Ban; Morena Mills; Jordan Tam; et al. (May 2013). "A social–ecological approach to conservation planning: embedding social considerations". Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 11 (4): 194–202. doi:10.1890/110205. ISSN 1540-9295. S2CID 86056768. Wikidata Q57049026.
• Joshua Cinner; Cindy Huchery; M Aaron MacNeil; et al. (15 June 2016). "Bright spots among the world's coral reefs". Nature. 535 (7612): 416–419. doi:10.1038/NATURE18607. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 27309809. S2CID 3600223. Wikidata Q39678986.
• Timothy R. McClanahan; Christina C Hicks; Emily S Darling (1 September 2008). "Malthusian overfishing and efforts to overcome it on Kenyan coral reefs". Ecological Applications. 18 (6): 1516–1529. doi:10.1890/07-0876.1. ISSN 1051-0761. PMID 18767626. S2CID 17309432. Wikidata Q45776411.