On October 24, 2024, the Academy’s San Diego Committee hosted a program on “Health and Our Oceans,” which featured atmospheric chemist and Academy member Kimberly A. Prather. Professor Prather discussed newly identified critical connections between rising pollution levels in coastal oceans and rivers and their far-reaching impacts on air quality and human health. She also described a recent study on local air and water quality issues in southern San Diego. The program included introductory remarks from Susan Taylor, Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology, Chemistry & Biochemistry at UC San Diego School of Medicine, and Margaret S. Leinen, Director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Vice Chancellor for Marine Sciences, and Dean of the School of Marine Sciences at UC San Diego. An edited version of Professor Prather’s presentation follows.

Academy projects in Science, Engineering, and Technology seek to strengthen the capacity of science and engineering to improve the human condition. This goal has never been more important for the nation or for the world than it is today. Global challenges increasingly require collaboration across disciplinary, professional, and national boundaries. Likewise, rapid advances in information processing and transmission raise new issues for the management of scientific knowledge and for action on new discoveries.

The Spring 2015 issue of Dædalus on “Successful Aging of Societies” explores the opportunities and challenges facing the United States as it undergoes an unprecedented demographic transformation.

The Spring 2022 issue of Dædalus on “AI & Society,” guest edited by Academy member James Manyika, explores the many facets of AI: its technology, its potential futures, its effects on labor and the economy, its relationship with inequalities, its role in law and governance, its challenges to national security, and what it says about us as humans. What follows are a few additional remarks and insight from the volume’s guest editor on the collection.

In 2015, the American Musicological Society gave the Noah Greenberg Award to musicologist Jessie Ann Owens and the vocal ensemble Blue Heron, directed by Scott Metcalfe, for their project to produce the world premiere recording of Cipriano de Rore’s landmark I madrigali a cinque voci (Venice, 1542). On May 3, 2018, Owens spoke at the Academy about Cipriano’s music; following her presentation, Blue Heron performed a selection of madrigals drawn from his 1542 publication.

Immigration is not only where the people come from, and why they come, and whether they are forced to come; it's also how and, in the long run, whether they are received.

At a program hosted by the Academy’s New Haven Program Committee, Linda Greenhouse (New York Times columnist and Senior Research Scholar in Law at Yale Law School) discussed the United States Supreme Court’s transformational year and the challenges to Roe v. Wade.

The Academy's Commission on Reimagining Our Economy (CORE) is rethinking the values, policies, narratives, and metrics that shape the nation’s political economy. Rather than focus on how the economy is doing, the Commission seeks to direct a focus onto how Americans are doing. As part of this work, the Academy hosted a conversation with U.S. Representative Jim Himes, Chair of the House Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth and U.S. Representative Bryan Steil, the Ranking Member of the Committee.

Peter Grant and B. Rosemary Grant present their research studying evolutionary processes in the Galápagos finches, followed by a conversation with Zackory Burns (Hellman Fellow in Science and Technology Policy).

The Academy’s Francis Amory Prize recognizes major contributions to the field of reproductive biology and was first awarded in 1940. Over the years, the prize recipients have reflected the increasing complexity and remarkable scientific progress in the field of reproductive biology.

The first Stated Meeting in the 220-year history of the Academy to be held outside the United States took place at the residence of the US Ambassador to France on June 6, 2000.

When forced to decide between a career in biochemistry or psychology in the spring of 1950, Jerome Kagan chose the latter because of a gnawing puzzlement provoked by the observation that apparently sane people living in the same community held different beliefs about love, honesty, and whom was entitled to respect and whom to scorn.

On February 6, 2018, Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter S. Onuf participated in a discussion on Jefferson, race, and democracy, drawing from their recent book, “Most Blessed of the Patriarchs”: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination.

The Academy’s record of distinction in Science, Engineering, and Technology dates to its founding mission “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.” Rather than generate new scientific research, the role of the Academy has been uniquely interdisciplinary, bridging the social sciences and arts with the physical sciences to support a national understanding, belief, and trust in science and discovery. Perhaps no better example of this can be found than in the mid-1800s when the Academy hosted hotly contested debates about a new scientific theory: the theory of evolution.

On October 1, 2011, the American Academy inducted its 231st class of Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members at a ceremony held in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The ceremony included presentations by five new members: Frances Hamilton Arnold, David Conrad Page, Sir Adam Roberts, Annette Gordon-Reed, and William I. Miller.

American Academy Journal Dædalus examines race in America today. Twenty-two prominent social scientists examine “Race, Inequality, and Culture,” considering topics ranging from education and family support to racial identity, politics, employment, immigration, and the influence of hip hop.

While much of the conversation about the outcomes of college graduates focuses on their earnings, a new report from the American Academy’s Humanities Indicators offers a more expansive view of bachelor’s degree recipients’ experiences in the workforce and beyond.

John G. Levi discusses access to justice, and how many low-income Americans have significant difficulty navigating our country’s legal system on their own.

At an Academy event, participants considered the potential impact of Solar Radiation Management with regard to climate change and considered questions of governance. Given the relevance to climate and global affairs, the discussants included environmental and atmospheric scientists, political scientists, and policy experts.

The Summer 2013 issue of Dædalus examines the origins and characteristics of new immigrants and considers their reception in the United States, with regard to both public policies and private behavior.