Name Charles Nelson | ||
 | ||
Charles A. Nelson III is an American neuroscientist and psychologist whose work includes research towards understanding the intersection of brain and behavioral (particularly cognitive) development, with a particular interest in the effects of early experience on brain development. In this context Nelson and colleagues have spent more than a decade studying the development of orphans who have suffered extreme neglect. He is co-author of the book Romania's Abandoned Children: Deprivation, Brain Development, and the Struggle for Recovery.; more recently, with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Nelson is studying the effects of severe early biological and psychosocial adversity in infants and young children growing up in the Dhaka, Bangladesh. Finally, for the last decade Nelson has focused his work in Boston on infants and children at risk for developing autism, with a particular interest in developing brain-based tools that lend themselves to early identification of autism. Nelson is a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School as well as Boston Children's Hospital. Elsewhere at Harvard he is Professor of Education in the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences in the Harvard School of Public Health.
Contents
Early career
Nelson completed his undergraduate degree at McGill University in Montreal. He has a Master's degree in psychology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas.
Nelson completed postdoctoral training in electrophysiology at the University of Minnesota, then took his first faculty position at Purdue University in 1984, and then moved back to the University of Minnesota in 1986 to join the faculty in the Institute of Child Development. Nelson's research laboratory at the University of Minnesota used electroencephalography to study the development of young children, particularly face processing and memory development.
Bucharest Early Intervention Project
Nelson is a lead researcher in the Bucharest Early Intervention Project. He traveled to Bucharest in 1999, established the project in 2000, and followed up with over 40 trips there to complete the research.