Dr. Nelson is a Professor at the Appalachian Laboratory of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science in Frostburg, Maryland. In July 2021 he became Director of the Appalachian Laboratory as part of a new plan that will allow faculty to rotate through leadership positions at the lab on a regular basis. Nelson is a broadly trained ecologist who uses chemical signatures called stable isotopes to investigate the effects of environmental changes on ecological and biogeochemical processes. He has worked on a variety of taxa (plants, animals, microbes) and systems (grasslands, forests, lakes, streams) across various temporal scales throughout the world. He founded and directs the Central Appalachians Stable Isotope Facility, which is housed at the Appalachian Lab. Dr. Nelson has served as vice-chair and chair of the paleoecology section of the Ecological Society of America, as well as vice-chair of the UMCES faculty senate. He serves on the editorial boards of the journals Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment and PeerJ. He is actively involved in various science outreach activities in western Maryland and nearby West Virginia. He received a B.A. in Biology from Trinity Christian College and a Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of Illinois. He held postdoctoral positions at the University of Illinois and Harvard University. He joined the faculty of the Appalachian Lab in 2009, and was a visiting scholar at Nagoya University in Japan in spring 2017.