Commissioner Nielsen is a land use attorney with a bachelor’s degree from San Diego State University, and a law degree from California Western School of Law. She represents private entities and other organizations on a variety of land use, planning and entitlement matters throughout all stages of the real estate development process. Her practice consists of land use due diligence, entitlement management and processing, appearing before public entities in connection with development projects, CEQA regulatory compliance, and post-approval implementation of land use entitlements.

In addition to her work on the Redistricting Commission, Commissioner Nielsen is on the Board of the Urban Land Institute where she serves as the Governance Chair for the San Diego-Tijuana District Council. She also serves on the Board of Directors for the Downtown San Diego Partnership and the San Diego County Taxpayers Association. She also recently completed volunteer terms on the Navajo Community Planners Board and the Code Monitoring Team for the City of San Diego.

Commissioner Nielsen lives in Del Cerro with her husband (who is also an attorney) and her two children, Jacob (6) and Jadyn (3).