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Shawndel N. Fraser / Environmental Psychology

Graduate Student Researcher
January 2009 – December 2011

Project: Production of Nature in Car Ads

Shawndel N. Fraser

Shawndel Fraser is working toward her PhD Environmental Psychology at the CUNY Graduate Center. During her tenure at the New Media Lab she pioneered multimedia approaches to analyze, archive and present her data and findings to varied audiences. The particular study about the Production of Nature in National Geographic Car Advertisements was a systematic, unhurried exploration into the convergence of the culture of nature, the digital humanities and storytelling.

Her professional goal is to create safe spaces and healing activities for and with people who feel fractured by intense experiences. She is currently writing her dissertation which will guide adult survivors of childhood trauma to envision their way to actualizing their idealized safe space.

Buoyed by academia, nurtured by conversations with everyday people, bona fide New Yorker, and former arts manager for two New York City museums, Shawndel takes a novel approach to Academia. She combines culture change research and meditative art projects to foster consilience, conversation and community. She seeks to facilitate inclusive forums where academics, professionals, and any of the 99% would be interested and courageous enough to innovate new conceptualizations of and approaches to current day concerns.

Shawndel Fraser was the two-year Co-Organizer for the successful Annual CUNY Nature, Ecology & Society Colloquium. She updated the program format, and opened the culture to welcome colleagues from the visual and performing arts, the humanities, physical and social sciences to have truly interdisciplinary conversation about Climate Change and Environmental Justice. She initiated the Colloquium blog,website, and social media presence.