John Fraser
President & CEO, Knology
New York, NY
John Fraser is a conservation psychologist, architect, and educator. As President and CEO of Knology, a New York-based charitable think tank, his research focuses on how our experience with media and community influences learning, attitudes, and motivations for engaging with solving the complex social challenges of our time. He is the past president of the American Psychological Association’s Division 34; Society for Environment, Population, and Conservation Psychology, Editor of Curator: The Museum Journal, a founding editorial board member for Museums & Social Issues, and the Series Editor for Springer Nature’s Psychology and Our Planet, and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association.
“We are a behind the scenes think tank that works with media makers to improve the impacts and outcomes of their work.”
Dr. Fraser's past experience includes his role leading social science research and evaluation at the Wildlife Conservation Society and was a 2017 - 2018 Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Media Impact Fellow at USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism's Norman Lear Center. Fraser's academic career includes faculty positions at Indiana University ~ Purdue University Indianapolis, Columbia University where he was also a member of the Earth Institute team, Canisius College, Hunter College of City University New York, and Antioch University. Fraser originated the Conservation Psychology courses at four of those universities.
Dr. Fraser's career has followed a rather unique path, art direction for feature film, he studied film and animation at the Ontario College of Art and Design, and worked for the Canadian Archeological Mission in southern Italy before pursuing his architecture degree in Rome, Italy. As a founder of the field of conservation psychology, he pivoted away from research and design for zoos and aquariums to pursue a PhD that brought together all of his interests in a new career that lets him work across issues as diverse as human rights and environmental justice, media and global health.