12 Facts About Jelani Nelson

Jelani Osei Nelson is an American Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley.

Jelani Nelson won the 2014 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.

Jelani Nelson was born to an Ethiopian mother and an African-American father in Los Angeles, then grew up in St Thomas, US Virgin Islands.

Jelani Nelson studied mathematics and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and remained there to complete his doctoral studies in computer science.

Jelani Nelson was a member of the theory of computation group, working on efficient algorithms for massive datasets.

Jelani Nelson is interested in big data and the development of efficient algorithms.

Jelani Nelson joined the computer science faculty at Harvard University in 2013 and remained there until joining UC Berkeley in 2019.

Jelani Nelson holds two patents related to applications of streaming algorithms to network traffic monitoring applications.

Jelani Nelson was the recipient of an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award in 2015 and a Director of Research Early Career Award in 2016.

Jelani Nelson was awarded an Alfred P Sloan Foundation Fellowship in 2017.

Jelani Nelson founded AddisCoder, a summer program teaching computer science and algorithms to high schoolers in Ethiopia, in 2011 while finishing his PhD at Massachusetts Institute of Technology,.

Jelani Nelson co-founded the David Harold Blackwell Summer Research Institute, which aims to increase the number of African-American students receiving PhDs in mathematics.