Hayden L. Nelson
About Hayden
Hayden L. Nelson (Ph.D., University of Kansas, 2025) specializes in environmental and Indigenous history. He studies historical environments in the contexts of capitalism, colonization, and climate change, and he is particularly interested in exploring how those historical forces and their legacies overlap with one another. His dissertation, “The North Woods: An Environmental History from the Pleistocene to the Pyrocene,” which won the KU History Department's 2025 Outstanding Dissertation Award, investigates how both human and non-human actors interacted with and transformed the transnational forested region of the western Great Lakes and Upper Mississippi watersheds from the end of the Wisconsin glaciation to the beginnings of industrial logging. He examines how those forests came to be over thousands of years after deglaciation, how human societies developed intricate lifeways as part of that environment, and how the processes of colonization, such as the fur trade and the expansion of industrial settlement, have transformed the forested environment. In July 2025, Hayden will begin a two-year position as a Gale Scholar, Research Historian at the Minnesota Historical Society.
During the final year of his Ph.D., Hayden began teaching as an Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Central Missouri. At UCM, he has taught several sections of an online, asynchronous version of the US History since 1877 survey. In Fall 2025, he will teach an online, asynchronous version of the US History to 1877 survey. He truly enjoys the learning process of teaching, which is fundamentally different from learning as a student or as a researcher, and thinking about ways to convey course content to his students in new and exciting ways to stimulate their learning. Teaching is a great responsibility, and he takes great pride in seeing his students actively engage with and learn course material throughout the semester.
Along with teaching, Hayden is committed to making history more accessible and exciting to public audiences. During his M.A., Hayden worked at the University of Montana's Archives and Special Collections. In this position, Hayden collaborated with other archivists and Crow tribal members to create a display for the Crow medicine woman, Pretty Shield (see below). At the University of Kansas, Hayden has been an active member of a group of historians working on a project to rematriate In‘zhúje‘waxóbe (lit. “sacred red rock”), informally known as Lawrence's "Big Red Rock," a sacred boulder stolen from the Kanza and co-opted into a settler colonial monument. In‘zhúje‘waxóbe was successfully returned to the Kaw Nation in the summer of 2023 and had its public unveiling and celebration in June 2024. For the 2023-2024 academic year, Hayden served as the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Arts Research Integration Fellow at the Spencer Museum of Art. From Fall 2024 to Spring 2025, Hayden volunteered at the Haskell Indian Nations University's Cultural Center and Museum to help process and catalog their archival collections.
Public History Work and Curatorial Engagement
Hayden is passionate about making history more accessible to the greater public. In so doing, he derives great pleasure in sharing his love of history with diverse audiences. Below are some of Hayden's experiences in Public History and Curatorial Practice.
here-ing by Janine Antoni
During the 2023-2024 academic year, Hayden served as the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Arts Research Integration Fellow at the Spencer Museum of Art. The majority of his fellowship year consisted of working with his supervisor, Dr. Joey Orr, and New York-based artist, Janine Antoni, on the completion and public programming for Antoni's environmentally embedded artwork, here-ing, located in remnant tallgrass prairie on KU Field Station lands. The artwork, which is made entirely by human footsteps and took shape over several years, had a public event in October 2023 to celebrate its completion. In Spring 2024, Hayden spearheaded programming efforts at here-ing, which included giving a series of guided walks for a KU environmental studies course in April and developing a public program with Kansas poet and nature writer, Lori Brack. This public program occurred over two days in June 2024 and included Hayden leading the walk while providing the historical and environmental background of the site and the artwork, followed by a poetry reflection led by Brack, who then compiled individual thoughts into group poems. Hayden spent many long hours at here-ing, not only in the sweltering Kansas heat and humidity, but also over the fall, winter, and spring, which allowed him to develop a relationship with that place and its environment across different seasons. He is grateful for the time he had working on here-ing to not only build those relationships to place but also the relationships he developed with the project team members.
For more information on here-ing, check out Janine Antoni's website.
Biichiweé / I'll Tell A Story
Poster Exhibit. Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library at the University of Montana. Missoula, Montana. Exhibit displayed October 2019-September 2020.
This exhibit centers on the Crow medicine woman, Shitchísh, otherwise known as Pretty Shield, utilizing her perspective to track the monumental shifts that she witnessed in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century Northern Plains. Some of these changes in Crow society included: consequences of increased warfare, the introduction of horses, first-hand accounts of smallpox epidemics, the introduction of guns, as well as some personal relationships that Shitchísh developed during her life, especially to her husband, Goes Ahead, and the writer and ethnographer, Frank Bird Linderman. Exhibit created by Hayden Nelson, Aaron Brien, and Hannah Soukup.
Nature / Travel
As an environmental historian, Hayden is passionate about enjoying nature, traveling, and experiencing new cultures. Please enjoy some of his favorite images that showcase the beauty and diversity of both the environment and human cultures. All photographs are unedited and were taken by Hayden Nelson on his iPhone X and, later, iPhone 14.
Get in Touch
Contact Hayden L. Nelson to discuss his published work, teaching, collaboration opportunities, or for any other inquiries.