 The Catesby Commemorative Trust has been reformed (2020) as the Mark Catesby Centre, University of South Carolina, and Nelson is now the (honorary) Senior Research Director of the Centre.In May 2013, he received the Society for the History of Natural History's Founders' Medal, and on 26 June 2020 was elected one of the Society's honorary members.In February 2015 the Royal Horticultural Society awarded Nelson the Veitch Memorial Medal.