The award is presented to a physician scientist who has made outstanding and promising independent contributions to basic, translational or clinical research in the field of rheumatology. Dr. Nelson will receive the award during this year’s ACR Convergence conference, at which many UNC TARC experts will be presenting and participating.
Dr. Nelson is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the UNC Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Immunology, and faculty member at the UNC Thurston Arthritis Research Center. She completed her rheumatology fellowship at UNC before joining the faculty in 2009.
Since that time, she has been recognized as an outstanding clinician and clinical researcher, and a devoted educator and mentor. Additionally, Dr. Nelson has been the first or senior author on 31 peer-reviewed manuscripts, co-author on numerous other published articles, reviews, book chapters, and abstracts. She became Co-Principal Investigator of the Johnston County Osteoarthritis Project in 2017, and more recently became Co-Director of the Phenotyping and Precision Medicine Resource Core in the NIH/NIAMS funded UNC Core Center for Clinical Research (CCCR).
Dr. Nelson is widely recognized as a leading U.S. expert in innovative uses of musculoskeletal ultrasound, and was one of the first American rheumatologists to be certified in MSKUS by the ACR. Just one of her pioneering research efforts has included her introduction of novel, advanced computer science methodology to evaluate joint shape simultaneously in multiple joints in ways not previously known to the rheumatology community.
You can learn more about Dr. Nelson’s background and publications via this link, or read about her ongoing research here.