Eleanor Nelsen, formerly a science writer for Wisconsin Public Television and NOVA Next, has joined Virginia Tech as the communications manager for the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science.

Nelsen will work with faculty and leadership at the institute, the Office of the Vice President for Research, and University Relations to oversee the institute’s communications and media relations.

She will highlight the value of research that bridges traditionally separate disciplines, and the institute’s record of success as an incubator for cross-cutting science.

The communications program will also promote public engagement with special events, including the institute’s signature Black Swan seminar series, which aims to identify next-generation “disruptive technologies” before they emerge, and the Hugh and Ethel Kelly Lecture Series

Nelsen comes to Blacksburg from Madison, Wisconsin. While completing a doctoral degree in chemistry at the University of Wisconsin, she wrote and produced multimedia content for Wisconsin Public Television as part of a national project covering the science of sustainability.

In 2014, she was awarded an American Association for the Advancement of Science Mass Media Science and Engineering Fellowship sponsoring a 10-week stint writing for NOVA.

She has reported on a broad range of scientific topics, from gigantic galactic collisions to using red blood cells as drug-delivery agents. 

Nelsen earned her bachelor’s degree in chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Dedicated to its motto, Ut Prosim (That I May Serve), Virginia Tech takes a hands-on, engaging approach to education, preparing scholars to be leaders in their fields and communities. As the commonwealth’s most comprehensive university and its leading research institution, Virginia Tech offers 240 undergraduate and graduate degree programs to more than 31,000 students and manages a research portfolio of $513 million. The university fulfills its land-grant mission of transforming knowledge to practice through technological leadership and by fueling economic growth and job creation locally, regionally, and across Virginia.

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