Past chair of the American Sociological Association's Science, Knowledge, and Technology Section, Nelson is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society,[17] the Sociological Research Association and the National Academy of Medicine, and an elected fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. She has been a member of the World Economic Forum Network on AI, the Internet of Things and the Future of Trust and the Council on Big Data, Ethics, and Society. Nelson has served on the Executive Committee of the Eastern Sociological Society and the Board of Governors for the Society of Fellows at Columbia.[18] From 2014 to 2017, she was Academic Curator for the YWCA of New York City and was also a member of its Program Committee.