How might social research contribute to a retreat from mass incarceration, make the world fairer, and promote alternatives to punishment that help communities become safer and healthier? In a presentation at the Academy, Bruce Western explored this topic and the implications of mass incarceration for racial and economic inequality.

The Academy has announced the members elected in 2023. The American Academy of Arts & Sciences is both an honorary society that recognizes and celebrates the excellence of its members and an independent research center convening leaders from across disciplines, professions, and perspectives to address significant challenges.

This online data set – the first of its kind – attracted extensive attention in the news media and in the blogosphere and the website received more than 250,000 hits originating from 38 countries. The prototype includes 74 indicators and more than 200 tables and charts.

This online data set – the first of its kind – attracted extensive attention in the news media and in the blogosphere and the website received more than 250,000 hits originating from 38 countries. The prototype includes 74 indicators and more than 200 tables and charts.

Deceased Members

A growing numbers of parents are either delaying or selectively administering immunizations – or choosing not to vaccinate their children at all. A new Academy report makes clear that reversing this trend requires dedicated research on how vaccine decisions are made and the best ways to communicate factual information to vaccine-hesitant parents.

A decade has passed since the publication of The Heart of the Matter, the influential report on the value of the humanities by the Academy’s Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences. What has happened to the humanities over the past ten years, and what might we do to better support the humanities in the future?

The 2111th Stated Meeting featured remarks from Danielle Allen, a member of the Commission that authored The Heart of the Matter, who reflected on the humanities as a historical and contemporary practice in an age of digital superabundance. The meeting also included a conversation between Allen and arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown about the practical applications for the humanities, what works and what doesn’t for asserting their value, and their role in contemporary political debates and culture wars. Academy President David W. Oxtoby offered introductory remarks. An edited version of the presentations and discussion follows.

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.

On October 11, 2014, the American Academy inducted its 234th class of Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members. The ceremony included presentations by new Fellows Ramamurti Shankar, Diana H. Wall, Sherry Turkle, Mary Kelley, and John W. Rogers, Jr.

On October 30, 2018, Kenneth Prewitt spoke about the 2020 Census at a gathering of Academy members and guests at the House of the Academy in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Academy’s Berkeley Committee hosted a panel discussion on generative AI (GenAI) that offered a technical overview of the technology and explored the legal and economic issues raised by the growing number of lawsuits challenging the legality of GenAI. The panel included Jennifer Chayes, Dean of the UC Berkeley College of Computing, Data Science, and Society; Pamela Samuelson, Professor of Law at UC Berkeley School of Law; and Abhishek Nagaraj, economist and Associate Professor at the Berkeley Haas School of Business. Goodwin Liu, Chair of the Academy’s Board of Directors, delivered welcome remarks. An edited transcript of the panelists’ presentations and discussion follows.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences was founded by visionaries who foresaw that the nascent republic would benefit from the expertise of learned citizens to guide its development, health, and integrity through whatever challenges may arise.

Today, the clarity of that vision has never been more evident. We find ourselves in a time of deepening divides across lines of politics, race, religion, income, and opportunity. The institutions we have long turned to for leadership and information are under fire, as trust in the media, government, commercial enterprise, and academia declines. Strong and responsive institutions and a healthy civil society can carry us through crises and are vitally important in their aftermath.

The importance of public-private partnership; the assault on science and scientists; the attacks on knowledge, ideas, education, and democracy; the history of the American West and the American military; and the power of stories to teach, build bridges, and bring about social change – the class speakers at the Induction Ceremony for members elected in 2020 and 2021 addressed major issues facing the world today, with calls to action and calls for change. The ceremony featured presentations from engineer Lisa T. Su; neurosurgeon, medical reporter, and writer Sanjay Gupta; scholar and writer on civil rights and critical race theory Kimberlé W. Crenshaw; historian Patricia Limerick; and labor union activist Mary Kay Henry. An edited version of their presentations follows.

Projects in Education and the Development of Knowledge examine the vital role that education plays in our nation and the world. Work in this area seeks to inform policy and practice in support of high-quality educational opportunities for all Americans. From advancing equitable educational outcomes to leveraging new developments in the learning sciences and digital technologies to understanding the vital role that public universities play as engines of economic growth, innovation, social mobility, and citizenship, projects in this area draw on scholars and practitioners from diverse fields to provide leadership and actionable solutions to policy-makers, higher education leaders, and philanthropists.

On June 11, 2020, the Academy’s Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship celebrated the release of its final report: Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century. Nearly 1,200 people viewed the launch event, which featured Commission Chairs Danielle Allen (Harvard University), Stephen Heintz (Rockefeller Brothers Fund), and Eric Liu (Citizen University); Academy President David Oxtoby; as well as Commission members Judy Woodruff (PBS NewsHour) and David Brooks (The New York Times).

Saving democracy might require mandatory voting — and Massachusetts can lead the way. Miles Rapoport, of the Academy's Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship, and Alex Keyssar make the case for universal voting.

In 2002, the Academy’s Initiative on Humanities and Culture issued its first Occasional Paper, Making the Humanities Count–a study of the need for a systematic and sustained effort to collect data on the state of the humanities in the United States. The Academy took up the challenge, and on January 7, 2009, it launched a prototype set of statistics: the Humanities Indicators.