As global temperatures rise and extreme weather events become more common, nations face unprecedented safety and security challenges. While communities strive to protect themselves from the harmful impacts of climate change, each measure taken to increase perceived safety can have unintended consequences. As we surpass the 1.5°C threshold outlined in the 2015 Paris Agreement, the question remains: how can we ensure that our short-term security goals are aligned with climate scientists’ mitigation recommendations?

The Global Security and International Affairs program area draws on the expertise of a broad range of policymakers, practitioners, and scholars to foster knowledge and promote innovative and evidence-based policies to address crucial issues affecting the international community. Projects underway in this area engage with pressing strategic, development, and moral questions that underpin relations among people, communities, and states worldwide. Each initiative embraces a broad conception of security as the interaction among human, national, and global security imperatives. Project recommendations move beyond the idea of security as the absence of war toward higher aspirations of collective peace, development, and justice at all levels of society.

Danielle Allen writes about how Facebook is weakening our democratic institutions and what can be done to rebuild them. For solutions, she draws on recommendations in the Our Common Purpose report issued by the Academy Commission she cochaired.

The Spring 2020 issue of Dædalus, “Meeting the Challenges of a New Nuclear Age,” guest-edited by Robert Legvold and Christopher F. Chyba, examines some of the possible escalation pathways that could lead one or more states to use nuclear weapons.

Academy President David Oxtoby speaks at the 2019 Miami Dade College commencement and receives an honorary degree.

On October 6, 2018, the American Academy inducted its 238th class of Members at a ceremony held in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The ceremony featured readings from the letters of John and Abigail Adams by Katherine Farley and Jerry Speyer, a performance by André Watts, and presentations by Linda T. Elkins-Tanton, Huda Y. Zoghbi, Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, Robert Gooding-Williams, and David Miliband.

The Rumford Prize, which recognizes contributions to the fields of heat and light, broadly interpreted, was first awarded in 1839 and is one of the oldest scientific prizes in the United States. Previous prize recipients include Thomas Edison in 1895, Edwin Land in 1945, and Enrico Fermi in 1953.

The American Academy awarded the 2021 Rumford Prize to astrophysicist Charles L. Bennett for his contributions to the field of cosmology. The virtual award ceremony included remarks by Academy President David Oxtoby, an introduction from theoretical physicist Marc Kamionkowski, a reading of the Rumford Prize citation by astronaut and scientist Kathryn Sullivan, and a presentation from Charles Bennett. An edited version of the speakers’ remarks follows.

Civil wars can give rise to major threats to international stability, including transnational terrorism, pandemics, mass migration and refugee flows, and regional instability. Particularly serious concerns include the ways that civil conflict can contribute to the emergence of infectious diseases, undermine efforts to respond to pandemics – such as through vaccine distribution – and generate transnational terrorism with a global reach.

For centuries, humans have sought to enhance their natural appearance and abilities through medicine, surgery, exercise, and education. Today, performance enhancement is most often associated with drugs taken by athletes and college students to improve physical and mental performance.

Academy Publications

At a Brown University event co-hosted with the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, panelists discussed the importance of partnering with community members and first responders and reducing stigma around addiction.

The Global Security and International Affairs program area draws on the expertise of policy-makers, practitioners, and scholars to foster knowledge and inform innovative and more substantial policies that address crucial issues affecting the global community. Projects underway in this area engage with pressing strategic, development, and moral questions that underpin relations among people, communities, and states worldwide. Each initiative embraces a broad conception of security as the interaction among human, national, and global security imperatives. Project recommendations move beyond the idea of security as the absence of war toward higher aspirations of collective peace, development, and justice.

Academy Publications

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

It’s 8 am on a sunny day in Miami, Florida, and the former chair of Shell is discussing mitigation with Indigenous leaders over arepas. Nearby, a reverend and youth activists chat about sea walls as they enjoy their coffee outside in the 70-degree weather. The diversity of these individuals, who are members of the Academy’s Commission on Accelerating Climate Action, speaks not only to the convening power of the Academy, but also to the growing interest in climate from sectors across America.

Recent Dædalus Issues Explore Mental Health as well as Language & Social Justice in the United States

Francis Amory Prize Symposium: Advances in Reproductive Biology and Medicine

In a forum essay, the HULA team (Danielle Allen, Maggie Schein, Christopher Pupik Dean, and David Kidd) describes its work, which start in the education sector but are now being extended to public humanities projects.