Craig E. Nelson is Professor Emeritus of Biology at Indiana University where he has been on the faculty since 1966 (retiring from teaching in 2004). Dr. Nelson's scholarship of teaching and learning focuses on the scholarships of synthesis and application. When he began it was clear that the empirical and theoretical basis for much improved college teaching was already well in hand. He has worked to develop applications and to help other faculty understand and apply this knowledge. He has published more than 20 articles and chapters addressing variously critical thinking and mature valuing, diversity, active learning, teaching evolution and SOTL. He has presented invited workshops on these topics at national meetings and individual institutions (in 37 states and 8 countries).

Before his retirement in 2004, Dr. Nelson taught: introductory biology; graduate and undergraduate evolution and ecology; an Intensive Freshman Seminar (Biology, Critical thinking and Real Life) and several interdisciplinary and honors courses (e.g. Environmental Science and Policy, Ideas and Human Experience, the History of Everything Except Civilization), and part of a three course liberal-arts cluster (Knowing, Knowledge and Their Limits: Literature, Psychology, and Biology). He regularly taught a graduate biology course on Alternative Approaches to Teaching College Biology. Dr. Nelson's biological research (60+ articles) has been on evolution and ecology, initially on frogs, most recently on sex-determination in turtles. Questions addressed include: Why should an orchid scare its pollinators? Why should hot eggs become females in turtles? Dr. Nelson directed the Graduate Programs in Zoology (1981-83) and in Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology (1984-87). He was the first Director (1971-77) of Environmental Programs in IU's then new School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Its interdisciplinary environmental programs (B.A. to Ph.D.) now rank among the best worldwide.

Dr. Nelson received nationally competitive awards for distinguished teaching from Vanderbilt and Northwestern and is a Carnegie Scholar. In 2000, he was named the Outstanding Research and Doctoral University Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and received the President's Medal for Excellence, "the highest honor bestowed by Indiana University," in 2001. In addition, Dr. Nelson co-directed NSF funded institutes for high school biology teachers on “Evolution and the Nature of Science.” He was on the committee that founded the prestigious SOTL program at Indiana University, which won the prestigious Hesburgh Award for outstanding faculty development in 2004. He chaired (2004-05) the founding committee for the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and became its first president.