[3] Nelsen was born in Brigham City, Utah, and raised in Madison County, Montana.
[4] Prior to becoming president of CSUS, he was serving as special adviser to the University of Texas System's Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs.
[5] Nelsen served as the eighth President of the University of Texas–Pan American from January 2010 to August 2014.
[6][7] Prior to this, Nelsen was an associate vice president for academic affairs and professor of English at Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi.
Earlier, Nelsen was a faculty member at the University of Texas at Dallas.