Nancy Rabalais was born in Wichita Falls, Texas, the second of four children of Kathryn Charlotte Preusch and Stephen Anthony Nash, a mechanical engineer.
Along with two other researchers, she linked hypoxic zones in the Gulf with Mississippi River estuaries in 1985 through ocean mapping oxygen levels.
[6] She joined the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON) in 1983 and, with funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), identified a substantial hypoxic zone that had been affecting shrimpers.
[7] Rabalais has testified to Congress on the problem of nutrient pollution from agricultural and storm water runoff.
[16] In 2012, she and several colleagues started the Coastal Waters Consortium, which focused on the effects of the BP oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico’s ecosystems and food webs within.
She is married to R. Eugene Turner, an LSU colleague whom she has published work with before, including their book Coastal Hypoxia: Consequences for Living Resources and Ecosystems.