Michael France Nelson

West Orange, New Jersey · (651) 308-5430 · michaelfrancenelson@gmail.com

I wear many hats: Educator, ecologist, botanist, researcher, GIS practiotioner, programmer, and life-long learner. Most of all, I am a professional who uses my skills and experience to excel in new and challenging roles.

I have extensive experience teaching at the graduate and undergraduate levels, and conducting and publishing original research. Through research, course work, and teaching, I've also gained experience programming in serveral languages including R, Java, JavaScript, and HTML.

For more detailed information, check out my CV or resume!

Check out my profiles on LinkedIn and ResearchGate.

Experience

University Lecturer

New Jersey Institute of Technology - Department of Biology

Teaching courses in general biology, genetics, evolution, and conservation biology.

Lecturer

University of Massachusetts, Amherst - Department of Environmental Conservation

Teaching courses in quantitative ecology and GIS, advising/mentoring of undergrads and graduate students, departmental service.

Postdoctoral Research Associate

University of Oregon - Department of Geography

Research on Mountain Pine Beetle ecology in the forests of western North America, teaching, and mentoring.

Graduate Research and Teaching Assistant

University of Minnesota - Department of Horticultural Science

Research on the ecology and population genetics of an invasive grass, teaching.

Education

University of California, Los Angeles

Masters of GIS

Master of Applied Geospatial Information Systems and Technologies (MAGIST)

Expected 2027

University of Minnesota

Ph.D.

Plant Biological Sciences

2014

Bowling Green State University

Bachelor of Science

Biology

2006

Presentations: Slides and Resources

Here you can find slides and other materials from a few of my more recent presentations

Working with Spatial Data in R A presentation I gave on using R as a GIS and the basics of importing, displaying, and manipulating spatial data in R
Slides for a presentation on invasive species and climate change that I gave to the city of Gardiner NY. The invaders for sale portion of the talk was based on Eve Beaury’s article Invaders for Sale.
Slides for a presentation on invasive species and climate change that I gave to the Pennsylvania Department of Natural Resources (DCNR).

Portfolios

My web map portfolio from the course GEOG414: Programming for Geospatial Data Science II. (UCLA MAGIST Program, Spring 2024).

My research highlights portfolio: a selection of my research projects and publications.

My teaching tools and demos: various tools and demonstrations that I have created for use in my courses.

Courses

These are the homepages (including all course materials) for the courses I taught as a Lecturer at UMass.

Analysis of Environmental Data (Lecture and Lab): Required course for all incoming ECO grad students. Broad survey of analytical technques for environmental data. Preparation for further study of advanced methods such as GLMs, mixed models, and multivariate methods. Introduction to programming in R.
Introduction to Quantitative Ecology: A first undergraduate course in statistics, geared toward environmental science majors. Taught using R.
Introduction to Geographic Information Systems: Introductory course in GIS.
Spatial Data Analysis in R: a course covering the basics of spatial statistics, taught using R.