After decades organized around fossil fuel extraction, Alaska is having the kind of argument societies tend to have when the foundations of an old economic order start to wobble. Who controls a territory's resources—and who bears the costs of their extraction—stands at the core of political power.

Mark S. Schlissel, Mary Sue Coleman, Patrick Doyle, M. Roy Wilson, and Lou Anna K. Simon participated in a discussion at the University of Michigan about public research universities and their role in serving the public interest in Michigan.

As part of the Academy’s 2017 Induction weekend, Kathryn D. Sullivan discussed her experiences as a NASA astronaut and participated in a conversation with David M. Rubenstein.

2110th Stated Meeting | January 18, 2023 | Virtual Event | Morton L. Mandel Conversation

The Academy’s new strategic framework presents four animating principles and seven strategies that are designed to ensure that the Academy continues to produce high-quality, interdisciplinary work that addresses urgent societal challenges. In 2025, the Academy’s programmatic work laid the groundwork for new projects and initiatives that will implement this framework and built on ongoing efforts to increase impact and raise the visibility of the institution with external audiences. These audiences include policymakers at the federal, state, and local level; leaders in philanthropy, higher education, nonprofit organizations, and business; scholars and students; advocacy groups; professional groups and practitioners; and the public.

America is the most punitive nation in the world: we incarcerate the largest number of individuals and at the highest rate. American criminal justice policies of such punitive excess and unequal protection under the law have been shaped by and sustain racial inequality and exclusion and add to the harsh conditions of American poverty.

National commission to undertake data-driven examination of opportunities and challenges in U.S. higher education. Initiative receives $2.2 million in funding from Carnegie Corporation of New York.

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.

​​​​​​​Why has China, for so much of its history, been the most populous country in the world? How were the states that were formed in China able to rule larger territories and populations and maintain centralized structures longer than governments elsewhere?

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.

Elizabeth J. Perry explains the means by which the Chinese Communist party-state maintains campus calm, despite the many unpopular and potentially unsettling higher education reforms.

On September 17, 2015, at the Silver Center of Arts and Science at New York University, Matthew S. Santirocco moderated a panel discussion featuring Kevin Guthrie, Daphne Koller, and Nicholas Lemann.

On May 18, 2017, the American Academy, in partnership with the Carnegie Institution for Science, hosted a meeting at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C., on “Communicating Science in an Age of Disbelief in Experts.”

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

Applying threat-reduction lessons from cyber technology, biological science, and biotechnology to nuclear technology

Over the past year, the Humanities Indicators of the American Academy (http://humanitiesindicators.org) have been offering evidence for many of the urgent questions facing the humanities field.

While congressional leaders and policymakers explore the possible expansion of space-based military operations, a technical understanding of what is possible and at what cost remains unclear to many in the debate.

On November 22, 1788, the General Court of Massachusetts approved the Academy’s petition to hold a public lottery. Proceeds would go toward the purchase of a unique, grand model of the solar system for Harvard College.