Karen Wynn Fonstad (April 18, 1945 – March 11, 2005) was an American cartographer who designed several atlases of fictional worlds. In November of 1984, she published The Atlas of Pern which was based on the first seven novels of the Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey. Fonstad earned a Master's degree in Geography from the University of Oklahoma, and worked as Director of Cartographic Services at the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh before "retiring" to raise children and write atlases of fictional worlds.