Kirkus Reviews described The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation After the Genome, Nelson's book about the uses of genetic ancestry testing in Black communities, as a "meticulously detailed" work that "adds another chapter to the somber history of injustice toward African-Americans, but... one in which science is enriching lives by forging new identities and connections to ancestral homelands." Writer Isabel Wilkerson hailed the book as the work of "one of this generation's most gifted scholars."The Social Life of DNA was named a finalist for the 2017 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Nonfiction and a Favorite Book of 2016 by The Wall Street Journal. The book was published in an Arabic translation in 2017.