Natalie Nelson is an Associate Professor of Biological and Agricultural Engineering and Faculty Fellow in the Center for Geospatial Analytics at NC State. She is the Principal Investigator of the Coastal and Watershed Analytics Lab, studies from which take a data-intensive and management-focused approach to characterize and model nonpoint source pollution in inland and coastal waters.

Natalie earned a B.S. degree in Agricultural and Biological Engineering from the University of Florida, and her Ph.D. in the same department through the support of a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. During her Ph.D., she focused on hydrologic sciences and water quality modeling, and investigated drivers of harmful algal blooms in fresh and coastal waters of Florida. She joined NC State in 2017. While at NC State, Natalie has been named a Goodnight Early Career Innovator and University Faculty Scholar. In 2021, she received a NSF CAREER Award from the Environmental Engineering program to study the effects of sunny-day floods on coastal water quality.