Frank Proschan is an anthropologist and folklorist who has worked as a curator at the Smithsonian Institution and a research professor at Indiana University. From the 1980s, he collaborated with colleagues in Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia in research and capacity building on languages, folklore, ethnology, and museums. In 2006, he took up a position at UNESCO, assisting in the global implementation of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage until his retirement in 2015.