Professor Nelson is active in the undergraduate, graduate, and executive education programs at the McIntire School of Commerce. In 2014, he received an All-University Teaching Award from the University of Virginia, and in 2022, the annual Faculty Recognition Award from The Order of Claw & Dagger. He retired in 2026 as the Director of the Center for the Management of Information Technology, a position he held since the founding of CMIT in 1991. During his tenure at the McIntire School, he has also served as Associate Dean of the Undergraduate Program for five years, as Information Technology Area Coordinator for nine years, and as Director of the M.S. in MIT Program for 10 years.

Professor Nelson has published articles and cases on project management, product management, and IT adoption in a variety of academic and professional journals, including MIS Quarterly; Harvard Business Review; MIS Quarterly Executive; Journal of Management Information Systems; Journal of the Association for Information Systems; Communications of the AIS; Communications of the ACM; Information & Management; International Information Systems; Data Base; CIO; and Case Research Journal, among others. In addition, he has published two books: End-User Computing: Concepts, Issues & Applications, published by John Wiley & Sons, and IT Project Management: Infamous Failures, Classic Mistakes, and Best Practices, self-published with Amazon Kindle. Before joining the McIntire School, he served on the faculty of the University of Houston and worked for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Professor Nelson has served as a consultant to a number of organizations, including Bank of America, the Texas Air Corporation, Alere, CFA Institute, Home Federal Savings & Loan, and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.