Michael Paul Nelson is an American environmental scholar, writer, teacher, speaker, consultant, and Professor of environmental philosophy and ethics at Oregon State University.

[1] Nelson is also the philosopher in residence of the Isle Royale Wolf-Moose Project, a senior fellow with the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written word, and the director of the Center for the Future of Forests and Society.

Andrews Long-Term Ecological Research Program and held the Ruth H. Spaniol Chair in Renewable Resources at Oregon State .

[4] Nelson taught in the philosophy department, and held a joint appointment in the College of Natural Resources, at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point from 1993 to 2004, in the philosophy department at the University of Idaho from 2005 to 2007, and held a triple-joint appointment in the Lyman Briggs College, the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, and the Department of Philosophy at Michigan State University from 2007 to 2012, before joining Oregon State's Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society in the College of Forestry.

[8] His book, Moral Ground, won two 2010 ForeWord Reviews book awards - the Gold Medal for Anthology, and the Bronze Medal for Environment.