[1] At Macalester she was mentored by Peter Rachleff, and her thesis advisor at Iowa was Linda Kerber.
[8][9][10] Filmmaker John Gianvito called The Radical Lives of Helen Keller "the best of the biographies" in a 2020 interview.
[12] In "Disability History, Power, and Rethinking the Idea of 'The Other'" (2005), historian Catherine Kudlick notes that "Unlike earlier biographers, Nielsen places Keller's life in the context of major trends in American history ... to understand her and her disability as rich and complex rather than as a feel-good caricature of one inspirational person.
The SAWH awarded her the 2007 Elizabeth Taylor Prize for the best article in southern women's history.
[15] With Michael Rembis, Nielsen co-edits Disability Histories, a book series published by the University of Illinois Press.