Nathaniel Thomas Lupton (December 30, 1830 – June 11, 1893) was an American chemist and university professor.

[1] He attended Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania from 1846 to 1849, where he was a member of the Belles Lettres Society.

[1][2][3][4] He helped in its reconstruction, as the university had been heavily damaged by Northern troops, but struggled to find sufficient funding.

[1][2] In 1874, he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where he worked as a professor of chemistry at Vanderbilt University and later as Head of Pharmacy until 1885.

Finally, he moved to the new Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now known as Auburn University) in Auburn, Alabama, where he taught chemistry and started the Nathaniel T. Lupton Conversation Club "for social and intellectual improvement.

[1] Their daughter Kate was the first female to graduate from Vanderbilt University in 1879, even though she received her diploma in a private ceremony.