Nickelsen earned a diploma at the University of Göttingen in 1999, and completed her Ph.D. in 2002 at the University of Bern in Switzerland. She became an assistant professor at the University of Bern, was promoted to associate professor in 2006, and completed a habilitation there in 2010. In 2011 she took her present position as professor for the History of Science at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.[2][3]
Books
Nickelsen is the author of:
Draughtsmen, Botanists and Nature: The Construction of Eighteenth-Century Botanical Illustrations (Springer, 2006)[4]
The Maximum Quantum Yield Controversy: Otto Warburg and the "Midwest-Gang" (with Govindjee, Bern Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, 2011)[5]
Explaining Photosynthesis: Models of Biochemical Mechanisms, 1840–1960 (Springer, 2015)[6]
Far Beyond the Moon: A History of Life Support Systems in the Space Age (with David P. D. Munns, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020)
Hahn, Andre M. (March 2016), "Can a history of photosynthesis be grand?", Philosophy and Theory in Biology, 8 (20170609), University of Michigan Library, doi:10.3998/ptb.6959004.0008.001
Tirard, Stéphane (April 2019), "Kärin Nickelsen, Explaining Photosynthesis: Models of Biochemical Mechanisms, 1840{\textendash}1960, Springer, Dordrecht, 2015", History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 41 (2), Springer Science and Business Media {LLC}, doi:10.1007/s40656-019-0259-9, S2CID129942457