Dr. Fanton is an American historian and President Emeritus of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Before coming to the Academy, he served as Interim Director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College. From 1999 to 2009, Dr. Fanton was President of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and for seventeen years was President of The New School for Social Research. Earlier in his career, Dr. Fanton was affiliated with the University of Chicago and Yale University, where he was Special Assistant to President Kingman Brewster.
Dr. Fanton has long been associated with charitable and development organizations and has chaired the Human Rights Watch, Security Council Report, the Union Square Local Development Corporation, and the Commission of Independent Colleges and Universities in New York. Dr. Fanton is currently on the boards of Scholars At Risk, World Refugee and Migration Council, American University Afghanistan, European Humanities University and the American Exchange Project. He is currently a Senior Fellow at Hunter College.