At a Capitol Hill briefing today in conjunction with the release of three new policy monographs, experts outlined the current state of U.S. and foreign space policy and encouraged the Administration to set a clear direction that advances the country’s national security, civilian, and commercial interests in space.

Over the last few years, organizations across the United States – corporations, universities, and nonprofits like the American Academy – have begun to reflect on their ties to slavery, Native genocide, and other troubling elements of American history. The Academy’s virtual event on “Reckoning with Organizational History” explored why historical self-examination matters and what can be gained from these studies.

The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands partnered with the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in May 2022 to host Strengthening American Democracy through Civic Investment, a historic effort to bring attention to the chronic underinvestment in the civic health of our nation’s communities and to mobilize resources to support the development of local civic infrastructure.

North Korea has made steady progress on nuclear and missile technologies, but there has been little public awareness or policy-making attention due to other pressing global issues. To highlight the significance of North Korea's continued actions, the Academy convened a Congressional briefing with expert panelists analyzing the situation with regard to rhetoric, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and tense diplomatic relations.

On December 4, 2015, at the Georgetown University Law Center, the Academy hosted a panel discussion on “The Crisis in Legal Education” with Louis Michael Seidman, Robert A. Katzmann, Philip G. Schrag, Robin L. West, and Patricia D. White.

List of Staff at the Academy

At a meeting sponsored by the American Academy, the Royal Society, and the Carnegie Institution for Science, Wendy Freedman (Crawford H. Greenewalt Chair and Director of Carnegie Observatories at the Carnegie Institution for Science) and Martin Rees (Fellow of Trinity College; Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge; Astronomer Royal; and Visiting Professor at Imperial College London and at Leicester University) discussed what we know and do not know about the universe.

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.

James O. Freedman, president emeritus of Dartmouth College and the University of Iowa, took office as the forty-second President of the Academy. He succeeds Daniel C. Tosteson, dean emeritus of the Faculty of Medicine at Harvard University.

Economist and philosopher Amartya Sen discusses the importance of democracy, following an introduction from Thomas Scanlon.

The risk of nuclear terrorism has guided and informed the work of the Academy’s Global Nuclear Future Initiative since its inception in 2008.

The bipartisan Building Civic Bridges Act was reintroduced for consideration during the 119th Congress. The legislation, which aims to heal political polarization within communities, was initially introduced for consideration during the 117th Congress and was inspired in part by recommendations in the Academy’s Our Common Purpose report.

Announcing the seven Visiting Scholars at the American Academy for 2016-17.

Three of the nation’s leading private foundations have awarded funds totaling more than $1.6 million to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences to support its initiative on the Global Nuclear Future.

On March 12, 2014, the Academy hosted a program at its 2006th Stated Meeting about “At Berkeley,” a new documentary by Frederick Wiseman. The program included screened selections from the film, followed by a panel discussion with filmmaker Frederick Wiseman, Robert J. Birgeneau, George W. Breslauer, and Mark S. Schlissel.

This essay by Chris Mooney cogently distills off-the-record workshops for experts from the scientific community and representatives of the public to explore how scientists currently understand their obligation to the broader social and cultural contexts in which their work is received, and to examine ways to improve engagement between the scientific and public communities.