Kyja Kristjansson-Nelson’s film work has been presented at festivals in Asia, Europe, North America and Australia. K-Nelson has screened her films at venues including the Walker Art Center, the D.C. National Museum for Women in the Arts, the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art, and the Wexner Center for the Arts. Her work has received awards, including the ICDOC Kodak Vision Award for Best Cinematography, Ann Arbor Film Festival’s Griot Editorial Best Editing Award, and the UFVA Award of Merit for Documentary Filmmaking. Her films explore issues including memory and landscape, and often navigate modes of image making between experimental documentary or animated documentary practice. K-Nelson was a Fulbright Scholar to Iceland in 2005, and was a 2007 Bush Artist Fellow. She has been awarded Resident Artist Fellowships from The Corporation of Yaddo (NY), Skaftfell (Iceland), and Djerassi (CA).

K-Nelson is a co-founding member of E.D.I.T. Media (Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Teaching Media). Her research interests include accessible filmmaking, inclusive films, media arts education, and education leadership. In 2019, K-Nelson conducted a qualitative study with Bus Stop Films in Sydney, Australia, which led to the development of The Theory of Dispositions in Filmmaking.

K-Nelson is currently Professor of Film at Minnesota State University Moorhead. She was named the 2014 Minnesota CASE Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation.