Noted for her talent as both a transformative leader and a pathbreaking scholar, Nelson is president of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) and the Harold F. Linder Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS). She joined the prestigious IAS faculty in 2019, following a decade at Columbia University, where she served as the inaugural Dean of Social Science. Nelson was previously on the faculty of Yale University and there received the Poorvu Award for interdisciplinary teaching excellence. A sociologist of science, technology and inequality, she is author of the widely-acclaimed book, The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations and Reconciliation after the Genome. As leader since 2017 of the SSRC, a nearly one-hundred-year-old research nonprofit, Nelson has developed projects on democracy and technology, research collaboration and ethics and racial inequality, while reinvigorating the organization’s capacity-building programs for scholars. She is a trustee of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and a member of the Obama Presidency Oral History Advisory Board. Raised in Southern California, Nelson received her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, San Diego, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She earned her Ph.D. from New York University.
