The 2015 class includes Pulitzer Prize-winner Holland Cotter, singer-songwriter Judy Collins, Nike co-founder Philip Knight, Nobel Prize-winner Brian Kobilka, Tony Award-winner Audra McDonald, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, and novelist Tom Wolfe.

The Academy presented its Emerson-Thoreau Medal to Maxine Hong Kingston for her distinguished achievement in the field of literature. The award, named after Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, was first given to Robert Frost in 1958 and has since been presented to several notable authors, including T.S. Eliot, Hannah Arendt, Norman Mailer, Toni Morrison, and Margaret Atwood.

Watching "peaceful protests sweep across the land even amidst a plague" causes Eric Liu, cochair of the Academy's Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship, to note the strength of spirit and movement he sees even when the nation's neck is broken.

By Poul Erik Christiansen, former Raymond Frankel Nuclear Security Policy Fellow at the Academy

As one of the country’s oldest learned societies, we have a unique obligation to face our history and build a better future. And as a nonpartisan, independent research organization, we are well positioned to find solutions to help move our country forward.

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.

Capitalist democracy needs rethinking and renewal. Our current political economic framework is fixated on GDP, individual achievement, and short-term profit, all the while heightening barriers to widespread prosperity. Faced with mounting climate crises and systemic discrimination, how can we reconfigure our systems to secure economic well-being for all? What steps must we take to ensure our new approaches are (and will remain) sustainable?

At the 302nd Meeting of the Academy on December 7, 1847, an Academy committee submitted its opinions on the proposed plan for the Smithsonian Institution...

In a Young Voices opinion piece, Alexandra Hudson cites recommendations in the Academy's report and calls for a “fourth founding” to help Americans renew love of country and one another.

In the face of unprecedented hostility toward institutions dedicated to knowledge and the pursuit of truth, the Academy’s Board of Directors issued a statement reaffirming a commitment to the practice of democratic self-governance and the belief that a great nation invests in the arts and sciences while protecting the freedom that enables them to flourish.

In the face of unprecedented hostility toward institutions dedicated to knowledge and the pursuit of truth, the Academy’s Board of Directors issued a statement reaffirming a commitment to the practice of democratic self-governance and the belief that a great nation invests in the arts and sciences while protecting the freedom that enables them to flourish.

On March 31, 1999, Jared Diamond presented a condensed version of his talk on "How to Get Rich."

$5 Million Bryson Fund to Support Science, Engineering, and Technology Research

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences hosted in May Integrating Environmental Justice and Philanthropy: Lessons and Opportunities as part of ongoing outreach for the recommendations in Forging Climate Solutions: How to Accelerate Action Across America.

As the Academy continues to look at issues related to public perceptions of risk, uncertainty, and scientific research through its Public Face of Science initiative, it partnered with the University of Chicago to organize a public symposium on “Communicating Scientific Facts in an Age of Uncertainty.” The symposium featured presentations by Olufunmilayo I. Olopade and Arthur Lupia.

John E. Bryson (elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011) passed away peacefully at his home in San Marino, California, on May 13, 2025. He left behind his wife Louise (elected to the American Academy in 2010), four daughters, eight grandchildren, two sisters, and a consequential life of civic, governmental, business, and philanthropic leadership.

"Witnessing the death and destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina in my hometown of New Orleans a decade ago triggered an obligation to test the utility of all that I have learned in a long career as a public health scientist."

Major study by American Academy of Arts and Sciences seeks change in curriculum and assessment, commitment to funding public higher education, new ideas about the faculty role, and more.