Margaret Nelson

Margaret C. Nelson is a President's Professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and an vice dean in Barrett, The Honors College. She is also a distinguished sustainability scholar in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability. She conducts research on long-term cycles of change in human organization and land use. Her current interest is on changing economic and social strategies associated with population aggregation and dispersion among pueblo dwellers of the 11th through 14th centuries in the Mogollon Region. This research has been funded by NGS, NIH, U.S. Department of Education and private foundations. Professor Nelson is lead PI of an interdisciplinary research group from ecology and anthropology examining cycles of stability and transformation across the last 1,000 years in the North American Southwest and Northern Mexico.

Professor Nelson's teaching emphasizes critical thinking and effective communication. In 2001, she was named Centennial Professor by the Associated Students of ASU. In 2005, she was selected Parents Association Professor of the Year. She is the president of the Distinguished Teaching Academy at ASU.

In addition, she has examined aspects of the current status of women in archaeology. She has served on the executive board of the Society for American Archaeology and as treasurer for the Archaeology Division of the American Anthropological Association. She is a member and past chair of the Society for American Archaeology's Committee on the Status of Women in Archaeology.