Dr. Bruce Nelson holds a B.Sc. in Biology from Bates College (1974), a M.Sc. in Oceanography from the University of Maine (1980) and a doctorate in Botany from the National Institute for Amazon Research, Brazil. He began working in the Brazilian Amazon in 1979 as field manager for a botanical inventory conducted jointly by The New York Botanical Garden and Brazilian institutions. He traveled extensively across the Basin over a nine year period while organizing 45 botanical collecting trips. IN 1987 he joined the staff of Brazil's National Institute for Amazon Research (INPA). There he also undertook his doctoral studies, examining natural disturbances and natural changes in vegetation types across the entire Brazilian Amazon using wall-to-wall Lands satellite image coverage.