As part of the 2013 Induction weekend, Ken Burns (President of Florentine Films) and Ernest J. Moniz (U.S. Secretary of Energy) spoke about the challenges and opportunities for the arts and the sciences.

On April 30, 2024, the Academy hosted a virtual event that featured four contributors to the Dædalus volume on “Understanding Implicit Bias: Insights & Innovations”—guest editors Goodwin Liu (California Supreme Court) and Camara Phyllis Jones (King’s College London) and authors Jennifer Eberhardt (Stanford University) and Frank Dobbin (Harvard University)—who discussed some of the strategies and solutions to understand and combat implicit bias. The program included welcoming remarks from Academy President David W. Oxtoby. An edited transcript of the event follows.

The nation’s public research universities serve approximately 3.8 million students each year and perform much of the country’s groundbreaking research.

To celebrate the arts, artists, and the work of the Academy’s Commission on the Arts, Stephen Colbert, host of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” talked with Commission Cochairs John Lithgow, Deborah Rutter, and Natasha Trethewey. The program included poetry, music, and a discussion of the recommendations developed by the Commission to elevate the arts, support artists, and promote arts education in America. The event also introduced Mixtape, an online collection of arts experiences that features members of the Commission and members of the Academy.

Although global child mortality has dropped by 50 percent since 1990, neonatal mortality has declined much more slowly. Newborns now represent more than 40 percent of under-five deaths, and preterm birth is the world’s leading killer of children.

The American Academy inducted its 236th class of members at a ceremony that included presentations by five new members: Terry A. Plank, Jay D Keasling, Andrea Louise Campbell, Theaster Gates, Jr., and Walter Isaacson.

Mental health in America is a looming crisis, silently corroding the fabric of society. Despite increased awareness, the statistics paint a sobering picture: one in five adults grapple with mental illness annually, yet access to adequate care remains challenging, especially in rural areas. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies can significantly transform mental health care by providing tailored interventions, early detection tools, and convenient therapy options if concerns about access, ethics, and equity are addressed.

By Kathryn Moffat, Senior Program Officer for Global Security and International Affairs at the Academy

Public-private partnerships, new sources of revenue among recommendations for strategic directions

Institutions are critical to our personal and societal well-being. They facilitate relationships; they regulate behavior. They develop and disseminate knowledge, enforce the law, keep us healthy, and uphold social and religious norms.

​​​​​​​The Rumford Prize – a storied science award presented by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences – has been given to astrophysicist and experimental cosmologist Charles L. Bennett.

Building consensus across the higher education sector was the focus of the Academy’s annual convening of The Higher Education Forum in June 2024. The convening was an opportunity for leaders to discuss how to emerge from a year marked by new challenges, while colleges and universities were recovering from the impact of the pandemic.

Three forces will fundamentally shape America’s energy future: climate change, national security, and global competition. A more effective national energy policy could better respond to these challenges by encouraging the adoption of new technologies and more realistic pricing models, according to contributors to the Spring 2012 issue of Dædalus, Journal of the American Academy.

In 1980, I began my fellowship in pediatric infectious diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. My mentor was Dr. Stanley Plotkin: the inventor of the RA27/3 strain of rubella vaccine – the one that by 2005 had eliminated the disease from the United States.

Stem cell biologist Haifan Lin to receive Francis Amory Prize - awarded in recognition of outstanding scientific achievements in reproductive biology and medical care - from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Academy Convenes Educators, Donors, and Evaluation Specialists

Learn about the Academy event -- "What are the Challenges and Opportunities of AI in Mental Health Care?" -- which brought together members of the Academy’s AI and Mental Healthcare project to discuss what they learned and the publication they released.

Profile of Kathy Cramer, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and her leadership of the Academy's Commission on Reimagining Our Economy and the work to advance an American economy that works for its people.