Alexis Nikole Nelson

Alexis Nikole Nelson grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. She is of Cape Verdean descent through her mother's side. Her mother first showed her how to forage at the age of five by introducing her to onion grass.^[2] She attended the New School Montessori and Walnut Hills High School, from which she graduated with Honors in 2010.^[3] She graduated from the Ohio State University in 2015 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in theatre.^[3]

Nelson posts videos of her foraging finds on social media accounts. Her videos are informal, playful, humorous, and express a long experience and encyclopedic knowledge of foraging.^[4] She has maintained the Instagram account "blackforager" since 2019, and created the TikTok page "alexisnikole" in 2020, followed the same year by the YouTube channel "BlackForager". Nelson's posts concern such topics as the indigenous roots of foraging in America, the history of American foraging laws, and sustainable ways for her viewers to include wild plants and mushrooms in their diets, with a focus on vegan recipes.^[5][6][7] In most of her videos, she documents ingredients that she finds in the wild and then turns them into dishes using her own or adapted recipes.^[8]

Her popularity grew in 2021, from under 500,000 TikTok followers early that year to 3.3 million by January 2022. Her efforts were successful enough that she left her office job in September 2021 to focus on her foraging work full-time. National media attention that year included New York Times and Bon Appétit articles, as well as segments on The Kelly Clarkson Show and The Drew Barrymore Show. She was also added to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list that year.^[9]

In April 2022, Alexis attended the 2022 TED conference in Vancouver, the first since the COVID-19 pandemic began. At the conference, she gave a TED Talk about her foraging work, and cooked sweet-and-salty seaweed chips using Vancouver-foraged bull kelp.^[10] In June 2022, she won the James Beard Award for social media influence. Her accounts at the time had a cumulative 4.8 million followers.^[11][12][13]

In January 2023 Nelson appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live!.^[14] In 2023, Nelson joined the YouTube channel Crash Course, where she hosted a 15-episode series on botany.^[15] In December, 2023, an episode of Eat This with Yara featuring Nelson titled "The Awful Truth About ‘No Trespassing’ Signs" won "Outstanding Lifestyle Program" at the 50th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards.^[16]

Nelson is working on a cookbook, to be published by Simon & Schuster.^[9][17]

• 2022 James Beard Foundation Award^[12]
• 2025 TIME100 Creators^[18]

Nelson lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her fiancé and several pets. She practices a vegan diet.^[4]

• Ethnobotany
• Cape Verdean Americans