Margaret Wilson
Senior Risk Analyst
Joined RSI in 2006
Margaret Wilson is a Senior Risk Analyst at Risk Sciences International (RSI), where she has been a foundational member since the company’s inception in 2006. Drawing on a rare combination of scientific breadth and analytical precision, Margaret has supported and led a wide range of multidisciplinary projects spanning microbial and chemical food safety, prion diseases, climate-related risk prioritization, and global regulatory systems.
Margaret brings a deep understanding of complex risk systems, particularly those associated with foodborne and environmental hazards. She has been instrumental in advancing RSI’s international food safety work, notably through her role in the early development of FDA-iRISK, a comparative risk assessment system for evaluating food-hazard pairs. Her technical writing and analytical contributions have influenced policy discussions around thresholds of toxicological concern (TTC), volatile nitrosamine exposure, and climate-related operational vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure sectors.
Margaret’s current focus at RSI is on assessing climate change impacts on industrial facilities, exploring how increasing environmental volatility affects not only operations and infrastructure, but also worker safety and surrounding communities. Her work in this space supports resource prioritization strategies that respond to both chronic and acute risk scenarios.
Pre-RSI
Before joining RSI, Margaret worked with the McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment as part of a team studying international BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) risk management strategies. Her contributions helped shape a series of comparative analyses across countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Brazil, and Switzerland, and culminated in multiple peer-reviewed publications on risk policy approaches in differing regulatory environments.
Margaret’s academic background is distinguished by its interdisciplinary breadth: she holds a Bachelor of Science, a Bachelor of Education, and a Master of Science in Molecular Biology, with additional training in epidemiology, international food law, and financial planning. She has conducted molecular biology research on fungal actin-related proteins and nuclear migration, and co-authored early studies on gene regulation in eukaryotic cells.
Her scientific rigor and investigative curiosity were a natural match for RSI’s evidence-based ethos—she joined first through Decisionalysis, the consulting firm that preceded RSI, and has remained a key contributor ever since.
Case studies associated with Margaret Wilson
Publications associated with Margaret Wilson
FDA-iRISK–a comparative risk assessment system for evaluating and ranking food-hazard pairs: case studies on microbial hazards.
Cost-of-illness and disease burden of food-related pathogens in the Netherlands, 2011.
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Outside RSI
Margaret’s professional work on biodiversity and climate risk has inspired personal change: she has taken a hands-on approach to habitat restoration, improving the ecological value of her own yard by increasing the density and diversity of native plant species. Her commitment to sustainability, both in theory and in practice, reflects a broader belief in the value of systems thinking—whether applied to ecosystems, public health, or policy frameworks.
