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 Commission on Reimagining Our Economy is working on a photojournal with the work of four photographers capturing what it looks like to try to get by in the United States today for Americans earning around the national median income ($70,784 for a household in 2021).

The Spring 2018 issue of Dædalus, “Unfolding Futures: Indigenous Ways of Knowing for the Twenty-First Century,” offers Native and non-Native voices on subjects ranging from political movements, adaptive leadership, and representational politics to the production of scientific knowledge, the ethics of bioscience, and language preservation.

Recent surveys administered by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Alliance for Museums, Americans for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts show that U.S. cultural institutions enjoy strong public approval. However, despite that high regard, studies reveal a decline in engagement with many of these institutions, particularly since the pandemic.

Lawrence Goldstein moderated a panel discussion about scientific advances and their impact on society with J. Craig Venter, Lisa Madlensky, and John H. Evans at the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine in La Jolla, California.

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 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.

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.

The Academy, in collaboration with the Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA), hosted the Morton L. Mandel Public Lecture on “How Are Humans Different from Other Great Apes?” featuring Ajit P. Varki, Pascal Gagneux, Fred H. Gage, and Margaret J. Schoeninger.

The Academy hosted a discussion about pressing issues facing the world in 2025. The event featured Kwame Anthony Appiah (New York University), Michael Froman (Council on Foreign Relations), and Adam Tooze (Columbia University) in conversation with Anne-Marie Slaughter (New America). Academy President Laurie L. Patton delivered the opening remarks. Transcript and video online.

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.

On January 22, 2014, Robert J. Birgeneau, Mary Sue Coleman, Philip Bredesen, Don M. Randel, and Frank D. Yeary participated in a conversation on the future of America’s system of public higher education.

In today’s high-tech and hyperconnected world, threats from insiders go far beyond leakers and lone-wolf shooters. How can we better protect against the enemy within, no matter what it is that needs to be protected?

ARISE II cochair Keith Yamamoto argues that knocking down boundaries between scientific disciplines would reveal great new opportunities; indeed, a new game.

On March 26, 2024, stem cell biologist Haifan Lin received the Francis Amory Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. First awarded in 1940, the Amory Prize recognizes significant scientific advances in reproductive biology and medical care. The award ceremony included remarks by Yale University President Peter Salovey and Academy President David W. Oxtoby, a reading of the Amory Prize citation by Dean of the Yale School of Medicine Nancy J. Brown, and a presentation by Professor Lin. An edited version of the remarks and presentation follows.

On April 11, 2019, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences presented the Rumford Prize to six scientists for the invention and refinement of optogenetics. The awardees are Ernst Bamberg, Professor and Director of the Department of Biophysical Chemistry at Max-Planck Institute of Biophysics; Edward Boyden, Y. Eva Tan Professor of Neurotechnology, Associate Professor of Biological Engineering and Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT’s Media Lab and McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and Co-Director of the MIT Center for Neurobiological Engineering; Peter Hegemann, Professor and Head of the Department for Biophysics at Humboldt University of Berlin; Gero Miesenböck, Waynflete Professor of Physiology and Director of the Center for Neural Circuits and Behavior at the University of Oxford; Georg Nagel, Professor at the University of Wuerzburg (Bavaria); and Karl Deisseroth, D. H. Chen Professor of Bioengineering and of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Lucia Rothman-Denes, A. J. Carlson Professor of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology at the University of Chicago, introduced the prize recipients and presented the award. Edward Boyden accepted the award on behalf of all the prize recipients. An edited version of his acceptance remarks appears below.

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

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 to 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.