Academy Publications

This essay by Chris Mooney cogently distills off-the-record workshops for experts from the scientific community and representatives of the public to explore how scientists currently understand their obligation to the broader social and cultural contexts in which their work is received, and to examine ways to improve engagement between the scientific and public communities.

Five emerging poets of exceptional promise and distinguished achievement to receive Academy prize in honor of May Sarton.

The Academy is engaged in a number of projects, studies, and meetings that, when taken together, support the quality education and informed exchange that shape a healthy and inclusive democratic society. Just recently the Academy announced a Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship

Representatives of the Initiative for Humanities and Culture's two major components—the Research Program and the Humanities Indicators Program—came together to refine and elaborate on their future plans and to learn about each other's progress.

On October 24, 2023, the Academy released Forging Climate Solutions: How to Accelerate Action Across America, the final report of the Commission on Accelerating Climate Action. Prompted by a statement by the Academy’s Board in 2021, the report addresses the need for a climate strategy that breaks through the divisions that characterize politics in the nation today.

Robert J. Birgeneau to Lead American Academy Lincoln Project: Excellence and Access in Public Higher Education

Inspired by the Academy report on "America's Languages," Congressmen David Price (D-NC) and Don Young (R-AK) announced the creation of the Congressional Caucus on American Languages, a bipartisan effort to support and enhance foreign language competency and international education in the U.S.

In November 2003 the people of the former Soviet state of Georgia forced a revolutionary change in leadership to establish a new government under President Mikhail Saakashvili. “Statehood and Security: Georgia after the Rose Revolution,” a new book from the American Academy, analyzes the security problems that confront this new government and the greater Caucasus region.

On December 4, 2015, at the Georgetown University Law Center, the Academy hosted a panel discussion on “The Crisis in Legal Education” with Louis Michael Seidman, Robert A. Katzmann, Philip G. Schrag, Robin L. West, and Patricia D. White.

On November 11 and 12, 2015, over 50 Judges and Justices, Chief Justices, legal scholars, and lawyers gathered at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Brought together by John Levi, Chairman of the Legal Services Corporation; Martha Minow, Dean of the Harvard Law School; and Lance Liebman, former Dean of the Columbia Law School, the group discussed the nation’s failure to provide legal services for low-income Americans.

Since coming to the Academy as President in 2019, I have had the privilege of leading an organization that seeks to connect all forms of knowledge to help shape policy in the areas of American institutions; education and the development of knowledge; humanities, arts, and culture; global security and international affairs; and science, engineering, and technology.

As the nation grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic, venues closed, employment plummeted, and uncertainty affected every facet of the cultural field. Simultaneously, the renewed racial justice reckoning that swept the country last summer spurred an assessment of inequities in the arts. Leaders of arts organizations were confronted by difficult decisions and significant opportunities as they navigated these crises and attempted to support both the arts and artists.

The Summer 2019 issue of Daedalus, “Inequality as a Multidimensional Process,” guest edited by Michèle Lamont and Paul Pierson, draws on a wide range of expertise to better understand and examine how economic conditions are linked to other social, psychological, political, and cultural processes that can either counteract or reinforce durable inequalities.

On October 11, 2014, the American Academy inducted its 234th class of Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members. The ceremony included presentations by new Fellows Ramamurti Shankar, Diana H. Wall, Sherry Turkle, Mary Kelley, and John W. Rogers, Jr.

On May 15, 2014, at the Academy’s 2008th Stated Meeting, five experts discussed how institutions protect against the threat of nuclear terrorism.

The Academy partnered with iCivics to host a virtual panel event featuring General Jim Mattis, Louise Dube, and Danielle Allen on the link between civics education and national security.

In a single year, 55 million Americans might face 260 million legal problems, such as fighting eviction threats from landlords, dealing with overwhelming medical bills from an unexpected illness that could lead to bankruptcy, or seeking assistance to escape abusive domestic situations. Yet only some Americans recognize that these problems are matters of civil justice. And even fewer have access to available, afford­able, and quality legal support needed to resolve these problems. This is the civil justice gap: the disparity between the legal needs of Americans and the resources available to meet those needs.