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Gordon Nelson

Professor | College of Engineering and Science: Chemistry and Chemical Engineering

Contact Information

nelson@sydotnet.net
(321) 674-8480
River's Edge Main - Building A, 122N

Personal Overview

Dr. Nelson’s background is in physical organic chemistry, the how and why of organic reactions. Much of his research has been in the area of polymer flammability. His more than 200 publications are principally in the area of the flammability of polymers; particularly engineering plastics. His early contributions included extension of the oxygen index test as a tool to elucidate the effect of chemical structure on flammability. In industry (General Electric Company) he developed a major multidisciplinary laboratory devoted to fire and plastics. Over 500 large-scale simulations of fires in plastics products were conducted with considerable new understanding attained. He conducted some of the early industrial animal toxicity studies on products of combustion of burning polymers.

He was the first to recognize the importance of CO2 in more fully accounting for toxicity of CO in small-scale toxic potency tests. As a result of this extensive experience, he has participated extensively in the standards process for fire safety.

Dr. Nelson received the Society of the Plastics Industry Structural Foam Division’s Man of the Year Award for 1979. The Mississippi Legislature passed a Concurrent Resolution in his honor in 1987. He was the American Institute of Chemists Members and Fellows Lecturer in 1989. Nelson was also the 1992 chair of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents and was 1988 President of the American Chemical Society. He was the 1998 recipient of the Charles Holmes Herty Medal presented by the Georgia Section of the American Chemical Society.  From 2013-2015 he was President of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents.  On 2015 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Chemical Society.

Western Express cover with Gordon Nelson's article

Gordon Nelson Named "Author Extraordinaire" by Western Cover Society

Gordon Nelson, Ph.D., a university professor of chemistry, Fellow of the American Chemical Society, and multi-award winning polymer scientist, has added another accolade to his already inimitable curriculum vitae. Dr. Nelson received the 2021 Basil C. Pearce Award for his article, "Langton's Humboldt Express," which appeared in the March 2020 edition of Western Express, the research journal of early western mails.

 

Gordon Nelson Wins Second Consecutive Pearce Award from Western Cover Society

Gordon Nelson’s 2021 article in the journal Western Express on Pacific Union Express won the quarterly research journal’s Basil C. Pearce Award for most outstanding article of 2021, the second consecutive Pearce Award for Nelson’s writings.

His latest award-winner, titled “Pacific Union Express,” explores two similar, but separate, companies, Pacific Express and Pacific Union Express Company.

“As we shall see,” Nelson wrote in the introduction, the two companies “were not the same companies. Pacific Union Express existed nearly 19 months before Pacific Express appeared on the scene.”

Read the full article.