Tom Pickerell

Tom Pickerell, Ph.D. leads Pew’s international fisheries program. Pickerell is a marine biologist with more than 20 years’ experience in seafood sustainability, including wild fisheries and shellfish aquaculture, certification schemes and consumer guides, and social responsibility in seafood.

Before coming to Pew, Pickerell was the executive director of the Global Tuna Alliance, an independent group of retailers and supply-chain companies working to ensure that tuna meets the highest standards of environmental performance and social responsibility. Prior to Global Tuna Alliance, he directed the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership’s fresh & frozen and canned tuna programs. He was also technical director at Seafish, the U.K. seafood industry authority; senior science manager for the Seafood Watch program at Monterey Bay Aquarium in California; and a manager at the Shellfish Association of Great Britain, where he helped lead the U.K. shellfish industry development strategy and later became the director. He also served as a fisheries policy officer for WWF-UK and worked at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in a variety of policy and strategy roles.

Pickerell holds a bachelor's degree in marine biology from Swansea University, a master’s in analytical biology from the University of Warwick, and a doctorate in shellfish aquaculture from Swansea University.