Nathan is Associate Professor of Geography at the University of California-Berkeley. His research centers on semi-arid rangelands, especially in the southwestern United States: how they have changed, how they have been understood and managed, and the politics and economics surrounding land use change, fire restoration, and endangered species conservation. He has written three books and dozens of articles on these topics. He is an affiliated social scientist with the USDA-Agricultural Research Service-Jornada Experimental Range in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and the Jornada Basin Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site funded by the National Science Foundation.