Melvyn Bernard Nathanson (born October 10, 1944, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American mathematician, specializing in number theory, and a Professor of Mathematics at Lehman College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York).

[3] Nathanson graduated from Central High School in 1961 and from the University of Pennsylvania in 1965 with a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy.

He was Professor of Mathematics and Dean of the Graduate School of Rutgers-Newark from 1981 to 1986, and Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at Lehman College at the City University of New York from 1986 to 1991.

[8] In 1972–73 Nathanson became the first American mathematician to receive an International Research & Exchanges Board fellowship to spend a year in the former USSR, where he worked with I. M. Gel'fand at Moscow State University.

[2][15] He also organizes the Workshop on Combinatorial and Additive Number Theory, which has been held annually at the Graduate Center, CUNY since 2003.