Background
Nelson was born on October 16, 1917 in the Cooleemee area of Davie County, North Carolina. He was born on the Cooleemee Plantation, which was built by his grandfather, Peter Wilson Hairston (1819-1886).
Nelson was born on October 16, 1917 in the Cooleemee area of Davie County, North Carolina. He was born on the Cooleemee Plantation, which was built by his grandfather, Peter Wilson Hairston (1819-1886).
He graduated from the department of Zoology at the University of North Carolina with both a Bachelor of Science and Mississippi. Hairston continued his studies at Northwestern University under the supervision of Doctor Orlando Park.
Hairston is well known for his work in ecology and human disease. Nelson was also deeply interested in the factors that control human disease and was an adviser to the World Health Organization for many years. He was the second of two boys to Margaret George Hairston (1884-1963) and Peter Hairston (1841-1975).
The Hairstons owned plantations all around Henry County, Virginia, Pittsylvania County, Virginia, Franklin County, Virginia, North Carolina, and Lowndes County, Mississippi.
Nelson was interested in ecology from an early age. His Doctor of Philosophy was interrupted by World World War II, where he served his country by helping treat and prevent the transmission of malaria in the South Pacific.
After the war, Nelson returned to his Doctor of Philosophy, which was on the distribution of salamanders in Appalachia. These early experiences with studying the ecology of salamanders and the treatment of disease began his lifelong interest in the ecology and prevention of disease.
Professor of Zoology
Hairston spent most of his career (27 years) as a professor of Zoology at the University of Michigan and director of their Museum of Zoology.
During this time Nelson helped to make the University of Michigan one of the United States preeminent graduate programs in ecology. Afterwards he spent 12 years as a professor at the University of North Carolina as a Kenan Professor of Biology, where he advised students including evolutionary biologist Richard Lenski. Throughout Hairston’s career, he focused most of his work on the role trophic interactions, such as the trophic cascade, has on determining the species composition of communities of co-existing organisms.
Adviser to the United Nations’s World Health Organization
Hairston’s work on human disease was equally controversial.
Nelson, along with a handful of other colleagues, championed the idea that disease was an ecological problem that could be solved by understanding the ecology of germs and how we interact with our ecosystems. This once controversial view is now well accepted by epidemiologists and others in the health profession.
Hairston’s views on disease treatment and management were applied through the United Nations’s World Health Organization, where he served as an adviser on schistosomiasis in countries throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the South Pacific. Hairston retired at the age of 69.
Despite retiring, Hairston remained an active and engaged scientist
Post retirement he published three books, including, “Ecological Experiments”, which was translated into several different languages.
Served with Army of the United States, 1941-1946. Fellow American Academy Arts and Sciences. Member American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Society Naturalists, Ecological Society American (Eminent Ecologist award 1991), Society for Study Evolution, British Ecological Society, American Society Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, Sigma Xi. M C.
Married Martha Turner Patton, August 19, 1942. Children: Martha Patton, Nelson George, Margaret Elmer.