Mark Nelson, Ph.D., is an eco-system engineer and researcher, and one of the original “Biospherians.” He is Chairman and CEO, and a founding director, of the Institute of Ecotechnics, a U.K. non- profit organization consulting on several demonstration projects working in challenging biomes around the world. He is also Vice Chairman of Global Ecotechnics Corp. and consults on wastewater reuse and recycling using Wastewater Gardens®, subsurface-flow constructed wetlands.

Dr. Nelson was a member of the eight-person crew inside Biosphere 2, the 3.15 acre materially-closed facility near Tucson, Arizona, during the first two-year closure experiment (1991-1993). He has worked for several decades in closed ecological system research, ecological engineering, the restoration ofdamaged ecosystems, desert agriculture and orchards and wastewater recycling. He holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering Sciences from the University ofFlorida; an M.S. from the School of Renewable Natural Resources, University of Arizona; and a B.A. in Philosophy/Pre-MedSciences from Dartmouth College.

His Wastewater Gardens projects have taken him to the coast of Yucatan, Mexico; the high desertgrassland south of Santa Fe, New Mexico; the semi-arid tropical savannah of West Australia; theresorts of Bali; and most recently, the deserts of Iraq. He is the author of The Wastewater Gardenerand co-author of Life Under Glass and Space Biospheres and lives at Synergia Ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico.