Faculty + Staff

Dr. Patrick Nelson is a nationally recognized scholar and educator.  He has served as Chair of the Mathematics and Computer Science Department since 2016 and recently became Associate Dean for Research in the College of Arts and Sciences.  Dr. Nelson is a Mathematical Biologist whose area of expertise is in the mathematical modeling of infectious diseases and diabetes.  He has served on the Board of Directors for the Society of Mathematical Biology and continues to serve as the President of the Board for the Cornerstone Jefferson Douglas Academy in Detroit.  Dr. Nelson earned his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Washington and held Postdoctoral appointments at the University of Minnesota and Duke University.  He was a tenure track faculty in the math department at the University of Michigan, where he received the Burroughs Wellcome Career Award for his work on modeling HIV.  Dr.  Nelson then transitioned into a position with the University of Michigan Medical School’s Center for Computational Biology and Medicine (CCBM).  The medical connection allowed his HIV research to progress to include integrating laboratory experiments with mathematical modeling.  As part of his NSF UBM award, he trained over ten undergraduates who went on to MD/Ph.D. programs or Ph.D. programs at MIT, Harvard, Michigan, and other top institutions.  He has authored or co-authored over 50 papers with over 5000 citations and has been the PI or Co-PI on numerous NIH and NSF grants totaling over 2 million dollars.

Before all this, Dr. Nelson earned his Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Arizona State University, where he met his wife of 25 years, Dr. Trachette Jackson.  Dr. Jackson is a distinguished mathematics professor and the Assistant Vice President for Research – DEI Initiatives at the University of Michigan.  They have two scholar-athlete sons, Joshua (24) and Noah (20).