Recent Member Events

An event with Professor Akhil Amar, Professor Charles Fried, journalist Kimberly Atkins Stohr, Fix the Court Executive Director Gabe Roth, and Judge Patti Saris focused on the new report from the Academy's bipartisan U.S. Supreme Court Working Group in favor of Supreme Court Term Limits.

Among the 31 recommendations in the Academy's cross-partisan publication, Our Common Purpose, was a proposal to enlarge the House of Representatives to ensure better and more responsive representation for Americans across the country. The idea was explored in a "Vox, America Explained" video which featured the Academy's work.

Listen to Seamus Heaney read his poem “From the Frontier of Writing” along with commentary about its inspiration. This is an excerpt from a compete transcript and recording of his evening at the Academy.

The American Academy of Arts & Sciences is awarding the May Sarton Award for Poetry to dg nanouk okpik in recognition of work that demonstrates both distinguished achievement and exceptional promise.

Fiscal 2011 Budget Calls for Partnership with American Academy to Sustain a Robust Humanities Data Infrastructure

The Academy hosted a multi-faceted conversation about the interconnectedness of polarization, institutions, and the public’s trust in science. The panelists shared views from academic, journalistic, and institutional perspectives about how the public trust has been eroded and how the trust can be restored.

Federico Capasso and Alfred Cho recognized for invention, application of laser technology

The American Academy’s quarterly journal, Dædalus, has released its Winter 2009 issue, Reflecting on the Humanities. The issue coincides with publication by the American Academy of the Humanities Indicators, the first comprehensive data set about the humanities in America.

In March 1945, Mrs. Laura M. Agassiz sent the Academy three portraits of members of the Agassiz family: her late husband, Maximilian (1866–1941); his father, Alexander (1835–1910; elected to the Academy in 1862); and his grandfather, Louis (1807–1873; elected a Foreign Honorary Member in 1846). Both elder Agassizes were active members of the Academy; Alexander served as president from 1894–1903. The Academy accessioned the portraits into its collections and put them on display in the Newbury Street headquarters, which the Agassiz family helped to build.

The Member Guide is a new publication this year developed to illuminate ways in which members can connect to one another and the Academy. This resource offers an overview of Academy activities, projects, and processes with highlights throughout to indicate how members can get involved and who to contact with questions.

Martha Nussbaum Will Receive Randel Award and Deliver Remarks at April Event

Wendy Freedman gives the remarks for Class I – Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the 2010 Induction ceremony.

On May 5–6, 1956, the Academy hosted a conference on “Science and the Modern World View–Toward a Common Understanding of the Sciences and the Humanities.” The conference, funded by the National Science Foundation, was held in honor of physicist Percy Williams Bridgman and mathematician and physicist Philipp G. Frank. At their request, the meeting was not a celebration of their individual work. Rather, it highlighted the discipline of the philosophy of science, which they both advanced. Specifically, the conference examined the history of a scientific worldview and its intersection with the humanities in the mid-twentieth century.

Experts in five locations—Berkeley, Cambridge, Chicago, New York, and Washington, D.C.—to lead discussions about legal justice on November 11 as part of the Academy’s inaugural Distinguished Morton L. Mandel Annual Public Lecture.

A new lithograph by the U.S. preeminent painter and sculptor Ellsworth Kelly now hangs in the atrium of the House of the Academy. In celebration of the Academy’s 225th anniversary, Kelly donated 25 signed prints of his “Sunflower II” from a limited edition of 60 lithographs. The remaining prints have been designated by Kelly to be used as gifts of appreciation to donors who make lead contributions to the Academy’s endowment and capital funds during the 225th anniversary period.

Inspired by the Academy report on "America’s Languages," Congressmen David Price (D-NC) and Don Young (R-AK) announced the establishment of the bipartisan Congressional Caucus on America’s Languages in order to address our nation’s need for more bilingual citizens to help ensure national security, promote economic and job growth, and develop the potential of every U.S. student.

The cochairs of the Academy's Public Trust in Vaccines project discuss what research is needed to reverse the surge of outbreaks in vaccine-preventable diseases in the United States.