Fern Thompsett

Fern Thompsett is a sociocultural anthropologist whose research is based in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Her book project, tentatively titled Civilization's Discontents: Building Worlds at the End of the World in Cascadia, takes up questions of how people endeavor to live together in alternative multispecies communities, motivated by the climate crisis and anti-colonial critique. Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the Society for Economic Anthropology. She earned her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2025. 

Fern's previous publications focus on non-hierarchical and ecological pedagogies in the context of the free university movement. She is the co-author of Transforming Universities in the Midst of Global Crisis: A University for the Common Good, published by Routledge in 2021.