Mark Nelson

Mark Nelson, Ph.D., is an ecosystem engineer and researcher, and one of the original “Biospherians.” He is Chairman, CEO, and a founding director of the Institute of Ecotechnics, a U.K. nonprofit organization consulting on several demonstration projects working in challenging biomes around the world. He is also Vice Chairman of Global Ecotechnics Corp..and consults on wastewater reuse and recycling using Wastewater Gardens® subsurface-flow constructed wetlands. Dr. Nelson was a member of the eight-person crew inside Biosphere 2, the 3.15 acre materially-closed facility near Tucson, Arizona, during the first two-year closure experiment from 1991-1993. He has worked for several decades in closed ecological system research, ecological engineering, the restoration of damaged ecosystems, desert agriculture and orchards and wastewater recycling. He holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering Sciences from the University of Florida; an M.S. from the School of Renewable Natural Resources, University of Arizona; and a B.A. in Philosophy and Pre-Med Sciences from Dartmouth College. Mark’s Wastewater Gardens projects have taken him to the coast of Yucatan, Mexico; the high desert grassland south of Santa Fe, New Mexico; the semi-arid tropical savannah of West Australia; the resorts of Bali; and most recently, the deserts of Iraq.