Doing storm chasing field research, Wicker deployed the TOtable Tornado Observatory (TOTO) and was in leadership roles in the VORTEX projects.

He is also known for pioneering work simulating convection at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC).

in meteorology from the University of Oklahoma (OU) in 1984 and 1986, respectively, with the masters thesis: A Simulation Study of a Data Assimilation Scheme Designed for VAS Temperature Soundings.

He was awarded a Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences from UIUC in 1990 with the doctoral dissertation: A Numerical Study of a Tornado-Scale Vortex in a Three-Dimensional Cloud Model.

In 1999 he joined the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) as a research meteorologist and is a Fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (CIMMS).