Celebrating Sissel Halmøy, Rocket Scientist, Norwegian Warrior, and a Force to Be Reckoned With
25th August 2026
A friendship that began at the Royal Society, London and took us around the world
By Eileen O’Connor
Director, Radiation Research Trust
There are some people who come into your life through your work and remain colleagues. There are others who become friends. And then there are those very special people who become part of the story of your life.
Sissel Halmøy is one of those people.
I have been looking back over almost two decades of friendship, international work, travelling, conferences, scientific debate, laughter and shared determination. But before telling the story of all the places we travelled and the people we met, I think it is important to explain why this journey became so personal to both of us and why, in the end, it became a mission we were determined to pursue together.
Long before Sissel and I met, we had both experienced health problems that we struggled to understand. Our experiences were very different, but they led us towards the same questions about electromagnetic fields and their reported effects on health.
Photograph of Eileen O’Connor
My own journey began with years of unexplained health problems. I suffered with sleep problems, headaches, dizzy spells and vertigo, but I was told by doctors that these symptoms were stress or a virus. I eventually developed breast cancer at the age of 38 while living approximately 100 metres from a mobile phone mast in Wishaw, Sutton Coldfield, UK. At the time, I was also living in a community where other residents were experiencing serious health problems, and I began investigating what was happening around us.
The more I investigated, the more I encountered people reporting cancer, MND, fertility problems, headaches, sleep disturbance, dizziness, fatigue and other symptoms in connection with electromagnetic field exposure. I began to understand the term electrosensitivity and, most importantly, I began asking questions that would change the direction of my life.
The Woman Behind the Warrior
Photograph of Sissel Halmøy, the Norwegian rocket scientist who became my friend and colleague.
Sissel had a remarkable personal journey. A Norwegian engineer with a background in cybernetics, she worked as a rocket scientist for 18 years. Her career included an extraordinary moment in 1999 when she was chosen from 17,000 employees by her former employer to meet with members of the Apollo 13 team. It was there that she met Gene Kranz, the legendary Apollo 13 flight director, whose famous words, “Failure is not an option,” would stay with Sissel for years to come.
Sissel Halmøy – Houston We’ve Got a Problem!
When the Rocket Scientist Became the Investigator
In 1985, Sissel had been hospitalised for 14 days in an emergency unit following a total collapse and was diagnosed with a virus infection of the brain. After three months she returned to work, but within five minutes of entering her office she would suffer an acute headache.
Being an engineer, Sissel approached the experience in the way an engineer would. She did not simply accept that what was happening was inexplicable. As a rocket scientist, she was trained to look at systems, understand how different components interact and identify where something might be going wrong. She understood engineering and she understood risk. That mindset helped her get to the root of the problem and begin asking the questions that would shape so much of the work that followed.
Eventually, Sissel’s office was found to have been built over a transformer, and Sissel began to question whether electromagnetic exposure could have been responsible for the symptoms she had experienced. In her 2014 Athens presentation, Sissel described the discovery in her own words: “We discovered the office was built over a transformer. Mystery solved. It was not a virus infection of the brain; it was radiation sickness.”
These experiences gave us questions that we could not ignore. We wanted independent scientists to examine the evidence. We wanted people experiencing electrosensitivity to be listened to rather than dismissed. Most importantly, we believed there needed to be an open and honest discussion about electromagnetic fields, human health and the need for appropriate protection.
That is why, when I look back now, I realise that our mission actually began before we ever met. We were already on our own journeys, asking questions and searching for answers. What we did not know was that our paths were about to cross at the Royal Society in London, and that meeting would change both our lives.
London, “I Want Action”
In September 2008, the Radiation Research Trust held our major international conference at the Royal Society in London. I had worked for an entire year to help bring people from both sides of the electromagnetic fields debate together, scientists, policymakers, health professionals and representatives with very different views.
It was the hardest task I had ever undertaken. I wanted people to sit in the same room, listen to one another and debate the evidence. We wanted to create a genuine opportunity for dialogue rather than simply another meeting where people spoke to those who already agreed with them. I certainly did not do it alone, and I was enormously grateful for the help and support that made the event possible. The conference was a major achievement for the Radiation Research Trust and for everyone who helped make it possible.
Read more about the 2008 EM Radiation Research Trust Conference at the Royal Society
And we achieved it.
Among those attending as a delegate was a remarkable woman from Norway. Her name was Sissel Halmøy.
When the conference ended, Sissel approached me. I asked her what she wanted, and she looked at me and said simply:
“I want Action.”
I will never forget those words.
I had spent a year working to bring people together in London, and now this Norwegian woman was standing in front of me asking what we were going to do next. She wanted to bring independent scientists together in Norway so they could share their research, examine the growing body of evidence and consider what needed to be done.
I immediately understood what she meant because I was asking exactly the same questions.
Neither of us regarded the mission as impossible. We believed it was important enough to try, and so we decided to take action.
Norway, From an Idea to a Mission
That conversation after the Royal Society conference became the beginning of our shared international journey.
We set about bringing independent scientists together in Norway in 2009, with the aim of examining the scientific evidence and working towards biologically based exposure guidelines. Sissel worked tirelessly to raise the funds needed to make the event possible, and together we brought an exceptional group of scientists to Norway.
Stavanger 2009, International EMF Conference
The event became much more than another conference. The scientific discussions subsequently associated with the Seletun Statement called for a new approach to public protection and for biologically based exposure standards.
The work also led to a peer-reviewed publication, Scientific Panel on Electromagnetic Field Health Risks: Consensus Points, Recommendations, and Rationales, published in Reviews on Environmental Health in 2010. The paper brought together the scientific discussions and recommendations emerging from this international collaboration.
For Sissel and me, it represented something extraordinary. A conversation between two women after a conference in London had become an international gathering of independent scientists in Norway.
From that growing collaboration came the International EMF Alliance. Sissel, Lloyd Morgan, Don Maisch and I were among the co-founders and Board members, together with others who contributed to the Alliance in its early years. We brought our experience, relationships and shared determination to create an international network where independent scientists, campaigners and others concerned about electromagnetic fields could come together, share information and be heard.
The late Lloyd Morgan from the USA was another great man whose contribution and friendship I remember with enormous respect. He brought his knowledge, experience and commitment to the Alliance and became an important part of our international work.
Sissel and I continued our own work in our own countries, me through the Radiation Research Trust in the UK and Sissel through Citizens’ Radiation Protection in Norway, but IEMFA gave us a way to join forces internationally whenever we felt it mattered.
Photograph featuring Sissel Halmøy and Eileen O’Connor in front of the “Who Dares Wins” monument at Seletun, Norway.
Taking the Mission to the World
Our work then took us far beyond Norway. In 2010, the mission crossed the Atlantic to the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco, in an event brilliantly organised by Camilla Rees from the USA.
The Commonwealth Club was a particularly significant venue. Founded in 1903, it is the oldest and largest public affairs forum in the United States and has hosted many influential voices, including Dr Martin Luther King Jr., who delivered his famous 1967 speech there, speaking about freedom, human dignity, non-violence and the intolerable conditions in society that can lead people to protest.
Watch Dr Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1967 speech at the Commonwealth Club
Standing in that same venue years later, I could not help thinking about the people we were trying to represent, many of whom felt they too were being forced to live with intolerable conditions, recognition or adequate protection.
I gave one of the opening presentations, while Sissel was also involved in the programme and later moderated the final panel on the future of exposure guidelines.
You can view the Commonwealth Club event, including our presentations and the programme, here: https://electromagnetichealth.org/electromagnetic-health-blog/cc-video/
San Francisco showed us how far the mission had travelled. We had started with a conversation at the Royal Society in London. We had gone to Norway and brought independent scientists together. Now we were in California, speaking to an international audience. The issue was no longer confined to our own countries. It was clearly a global issue and had become a global conversation.
Photograph featuring Sissel Halmøy, Eileen O’Connor and Camilla Rees at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco
In June 2013, Sissel and I were both invited to attend the WHO stakeholders meeting in Paris. Over one hundred stakeholders attended the event from forty countries. Attendees included representatives from the EU Commission, government, telecom, local authorities, regulating bodies, environmental activists and health and safety professionals attended the event.
We did not simply sit quietly at the back of the room. We raised our concerns from the audience and contributed within the workshop sessions.
Photograph featuring Eileen O’Connor, Sissel Halmøy,and Kerstin Stenberg. At the WHO seminar at the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES) in Paris.
Athens — “Houston, We’ve Got a Problem!”
Then came Athens in March 2014, where we were again invited to present internationally at the “Workshop on Electromagnetic Fields and Health Effects: From Science to Policy and Public Awareness,” jointly organised by the European Commission and the Greek Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC). Read more about the Athens workshop and public hearing here
Sissel’s presentation was unforgettable.
Her title was:
“Houston, we’ve got a problem!”
Of course we did.
In my report of the event, I recorded Sissel saying another line that could hardly have been more appropriate coming from a rocket scientist: “It’s not rocket science. It’s just common sense and sound science.”
Read my full 2014 Athens report here
Who better to deliver it than a Norwegian rocket scientist?
Her presentation introduced her as a Master of Science in Cybernetics, Director of Citizens’ Radiation Protection, Chair of the International EMF Alliance and, electrohypersensitive.
Sissel’s presentation also described her own health history, including her hospitalisation, the diagnosis of a virus infection of the brain and the discovery that her office had been built over a transformer.
Sissel Halmøy – Athens presentation
My own Athens presentation similarly explained why I had become involved in this work, including my own health history and my experience of living close to a mobile phone mast.
Eileen OConnor – Athens presentation
Our personal experiences were the reason we were standing there. And wherever there was an opportunity to enter the international conversation, we went. We listened, we questioned, we contributed and we publicly asked why scientific papers reporting adverse effects were being excluded from some reviews. We continued to push for greater recognition of the concerns being raised by independent scientists and by people experiencing serious health conditions and electrosensitivity.
Our time in Athens also gave Sissel and me the opportunity to visit Athens University, where we were invited by the late Dr Lukas Margaritis and his colleagues to see their extraordinary research in action. It was a fascinating opportunity to meet the researchers, hear about their work first hand and see the science being carried out behind the research we had been following internationally.
Lukas was a remarkable scientist who made an important contribution to the field, and it was a privilege for us to spend time with him and his colleagues. His work remains of great interest to us, and we have since featured this research in a special Paper of Note on the Radiation Research Trust website, dedicated to Dr Lukas Margaritis and his research.
Photograph: Sissel Halmøy, the late Professor Lukas Margaritis and Eileen O’Connor at the Department of Cell Biology and Radiobiology, University of Athens, Greece..
Moscow, Where the Mission Became Friendship
Our journey also gave us the opportunity to meet extraordinary people around the world.
One of the most precious chapters was our visit to Moscow, where our dear friend, the late Professor Yuri Grigoriev, invited Sissel and me to his home.
Yuri was a remarkable scientist and an extraordinary character. He was Chairman of the Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection and held many senior scientific positions in Russia and internationally, including involvement with the WHO International EMF Project, the Russian Academy of Sciences and the International Commission for Electromagnetic Safety.
Our visit to Russia was particularly significant to our shared mission. Russia had historically adopted a far more precautionary approach to radiofrequency exposure than many Western countries, setting permitted exposure limits dramatically lower than those used across much of the West.
For Sissel and me, being able to travel to Russia, meet Yuri and his colleagues and see this very different approach first hand was an important part of our international journey. But what made the trip truly special was the friendship we found there. The scientist we had known through our international work became a dear friend.
To us, Yuri was more than his impressive list of titles.
He was our friend.
We spent time together with Yuri, his family, neighbours, friends and colleagues. We talked, we laughed, shared stories and made memories that I will treasure forever.
Today, those photographs from Moscow are incredibly precious because we lost Yuri in April 2021. His death was a huge loss to his family, his colleagues and the international community.
But photographs have a remarkable power to freeze a moment in time. Whenever I look at those photographs of Yuri, Sissel and me together, I remember not only the scientist he was but the friend he became.
I am so grateful that Sissel and I experienced that special time together.
Yuri’s scientific legacy also lives on through one of his final pieces of work, Frequencies Used in Telecommunications: An Integrated Radiobiological Assessment. The book was completed in fulfilment of his wishes and is now available to download free of charge.
Frequencies Used in Telecommunications: An Integrated Radiobiological Assessment
For Sissel and me, it is another reminder of the remarkable scientist and friend we were privileged to know.
Photograph of Eileen O’Connor, Professor Yuri Grigoriev and Sissel Halmøy in Moscow.
Photograph of Sissel Halmøy and Eileen O’Connor in Red Square, Moscow.
The Warrior
Looking back, one of the greatest gifts of this journey has been the extraordinary people we have met. Scientists, researchers, doctors, engineers, campaigners, and people from countries and cultures very different from our own have all crossed our path.
Some became colleagues. Some became friends. Sadly, some, like Yuri, Lloyd, and Lukas, are no longer with us.
There are many words I could use to describe Sissel. Engineer, cybernetics expert, rocket scientist, Chair, co founder, trustee, campaigner and international colleague.
But the word that comes to mind most strongly is warrior.
A Norwegian warrior
Not because she seeks conflict, but because she has courage. She asks difficult questions, challenges authority, walks into challenging rooms, stands her ground and keeps going.
When she believes something matters, she is prepared to fight for it. That determination is one of the things I have admired most about her.
A Friendship That Changed My Life
This tribute is not really about titles or conferences, and it is not even about IEMFA. It is about friendship.
Sometimes I think about that day in 2008. Our Royal Society conference had finally finished. I was exhausted after a year of work bringing people together.
Then Sissel walked up to me and said:
“I want Action.”
Neither of us could possibly have known where those words would take us.
They took us to Norway, Stavanger, Seletun, the International EMF Alliance, San Francisco, Paris, Athens and Moscow. They introduced us to scientists and colleagues around the world.
And that is why I want to finish this tribute with words that I know Sissel will understand. They are words that belong to the mission we started together.
Thank you for walking up to me after our 2008 Royal Society event.
Thank you for saying, “I want Action.”
Thank you for Norway, Stavanger and Seletun.
Thank you for building IEMFA with me.
Thank you for standing beside me in San Francisco, Paris, Athens and Moscow.
Thank you for introducing me to so many wonderful people, including your friends and family, for the laughter, and for always understanding why this work mattered so much to both of us. Most of all, thank you for your friendship.
We could never have known in 2008 where that conversation would take us. We have travelled a long road and faced formidable battles. We have each continued our work in our own countries, but we have never stopped caring about the people and questions that brought us together in the first place.
The mission continues, the warrior marches on and, thankfully, so does the friendship.
Because we both know why we started.
We started because this was personal.
We started because we had experienced it ourselves.
We started because we wanted answers.
We started because we wanted action.
And we started because we believed that something that looked impossibly difficult was not impossible.
We faced challenging meetings and moments when it would have been easier to stop.
But we kept going. We kept standing.
And that is why I want to finish this tribute with words that I know Sissel will understand.
Failure is not an option.
The mission continues.
We will keep going.
We will keep standing together.
And Sissel, after everything we have been through, you know exactly what I mean when I say this:
WE WILL WIN!
You are a Norwegian Rocket Scientist, a Norwegian Warrior, an extraordinary colleague, a co founder and, most importantly, a lifelong and very dear friend.
With love and enormous gratitude, 🚀❤️
Eileen O’Connor
Director
Co-founder, Radiation Research Trust
https://radiationresearch.org/
Co-founder and Board Member
International EMF Alliance
https://www.iemfa.org/
References
- Radiation Research Trust, EM Radiation Research Trust Conference, Royal Society, London, 8–9 September 2008. Conference history, programme and presentations. https://radiationresearch.org/em-radiation-research-trust-conference/
- International EMF Alliance,Stavanger 2009, International EMF Conference.
https://www.iemfa.org/stavanger-2009/ - Fragopoulou A, Grigoriev Y, Johansson O, Margaritis LH, Morgan L, Richter E, Sage C.Scientific panel on electromagnetic field health risks: consensus points, recommendations, and rationales. Reviews on Environmental Health. 2010;25(4):307 to 317. PMID: 21268443. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21268443/
- Commonwealth Club of California,The Health Effects of Electromagnetic Fields, San Francisco, 18 November 2010. Programme, presentations and video archive.
https://electromagnetichealth.org/electromagnetic-health-blog/cc-video/ - European Commission, SCENIHR Workshop and Public Hearing on Electromagnetic Fields (EMF) and Potential Health Effects, Athens, 27–28 March 2014. Information on the workshop, public hearing and programme. https://health.ec.europa.eu/other-pages/health-sc-basic-page/workshop-electromagnetic-fields-emfand-potential-health-effects_en
- Eileen O’Connor, 500 Million Citizens Are Relying on SCENIHR: Is Science Being Hidden from the Public?, March 2014.https://www.radiationresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/500-million-citizens-are-relying-on-SCENIHR.pdf
- Sissel Halmøy, Houston We’ve Got a Problem!, presentation to the Workshop on Electromagnetic Fields and Health Effects: From Science to Policy and Public Awareness, Athens, 28 March 2014. European Commission. https://health.ec.europa.eu/document/download/49192af0-6921-42cf-8886-e1a807f981f4_en?filename=ev_20140328_co13_en.pdf
- Eileen O’Connor, Conciliating Scientific Findings and Uncertainties in Policy Making, presentation to the Workshop on Electromagnetic Fields and Health Effects: From Science to Policy and Public Awareness, Athens, 27–28 March 2014. European Commission.https://health.ec.europa.eu/document/download/5f4c2c79-f45b-4201-938f-9cf24c492c75_en?filename=ev_20140328_co14_en.pdf
- Radiation Research Trust, on the Paper of Note: Dr Lukas Margaritis. Featuring the research of Dr Lukas Margaritis and his colleagues on Drosophila oogenesis as a bio marker responding to EMF sources. https://radiationresearch.org/paper-of-note-january-2026-dr-lukas-margaritis/
- Grigoriev, Yuri G. et al. Frequencies Used in Telecommunications: An Integrated Radiobiological Assessment. Translated and adapted by the ORSAA. Radiation Research Trust, free book download. https://radiationresearch.org/frequencies-used-in-telecommunications-an-integrated-radiobiological-assessment/
