Rebecca J. Nelson

Who is Rebecca J. Nelson?

Rebecca Nelson, B.A. Swarthmore College, 1982, Ph.D. University of Washington, 1988. Professor of Plant Pathology, Plant Breeding and International Agriculture at Cornell University. She is also Scientific Director for The McKnight Foundation Collaborative Crop Research Program. Her current research concerns resistance to diseases of cereal crops in Africa. From 1997 until 2001 she led the late blight program at the International Potato Center in Peru. She appeared in the KCTS public television documentary, Hot Potatoes, originally broadcast November 12, 2001.

She was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow in 1998 for her work in combating rice diseases and potato blight.

Nelson's parents were researchers at the National Institutes of Health. She is married to public radio journalist Jonathan Miller and has two children, William and Benjamin.