John Cook is a research assistant professor at the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University. He has a PhD in cognitive psychology from the University of Western Australia. He founded Skeptical Science, a website which won the 2011 Australian Museum Eureka Prize for the Advancement of Climate Change Knowledge and 2016 Friend of the Planet Award from the National Center for Science Education. J
ohn co-authored the college textbooks Climate Change: Examining the Facts with Weber State University professor Daniel Bedford. He was also a coauthor of the textbook Climate Change Science: A Modern Synthesis and the book Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand. In 2013, he published a paper analysing the scientific consensus on climate change that has been highlighted by President Obama and UK Prime Minister David Cameron. In 2015, he developed a Massive Open Online Course at the University of Queensland on climate science denial, that has received over 25,000 enrollments.
He currently co-hosts a podcast Evidence Squared on the science of science communication.
2011 Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Advancement of Climate Change Knowledge; 2016 Friend of the Planet Award from the National Center for Science Education