On October 17, 2023, Dava Newman (Director of the MIT Media Lab and former NASA Deputy Administrator) spoke about the MIT Media Lab’s work and the use of vast amounts of data collected by satellites to inform and motivate the public for the fight against climate change. The program included welcoming remarks by Academy President David W. Oxtoby. An edited and condensed version of Dr. Newman’s presentation follows.

As both a scholar and former administrator, Hope Shannon has been immersed in the world of local history organizations, and speaks in her essay to the ways in which such groups can use NIHO to leverage their limited resources.

Research funding is not unlike food production; it is not the amount, but the distribution of research funds that matters.

After 238 years, there are not that many “firsts” left for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences to achieve. Yet on November 29, 2018, the Academy found one, hosting its first jazz performance at its headquarters in Cambridge.

Giving by private foundations to the humanities more than doubled during the past decade, according to a new study conducted and published by the Foundation Center in collaboration with the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

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.

"In this essay, I review some of my work that attempts to understand the changes in human memory that take place from young adulthood to old age."

The American Academy of Arts & Sciences named Toni Morrison as the recipient of the 2016 Emerson-Thoreau Medal for her distinguished achievement in the field of literature. Established in 1958, the medal is awarded to an individual for his or her total literary achievement rather than for a specific work.

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.

Select Prizes and Awards to Members

Arthur Gelb, a prominent member of the American Academy since 2000, died on November 8, 2023. He served as the Chairman of the Academy’s Investment Committee and as a member of the Academy Trust. For many Academy Induction ceremonies his role was to introduce the Class I speaker (in the mathematical and physical sciences).

On April 30, 2024, the Academy hosted a virtual event that featured four contributors to the Dædalus volume on “Understanding Implicit Bias: Insights & Innovations”—guest editors Goodwin Liu (California Supreme Court) and Camara Phyllis Jones (King’s College London) and authors Jennifer Eberhardt (Stanford University) and Frank Dobbin (Harvard University)—who discussed some of the strategies and solutions to understand and combat implicit bias. The program included welcoming remarks from Academy President David W. Oxtoby. An edited transcript of the event follows.

At a Brown University event co-hosted with the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, panelists discussed the importance of partnering with community members and first responders and reducing stigma around addiction.

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).

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.

On November 11, 2015, Diane P. Wood, Goodwin Liu, and David S. Tatel discussed issues of access to the justice system. The program, which served as the 2027th Stated Meeting and the Inaugural Distinguished Morton L. Mandel Annual Public Lecture, was streamed to gatherings of members in four cities around the country: New York, Washington, Chicago, and Berkeley. The program concluded the first day of a two-day Academy symposium on the state of legal services for low-income Americans, which brought together federal and state judges, lawyers, legal scholars, and legal aid providers concerned about the state of legal services for Americans.

The University of West Georgia College of Arts and Humanities is serving as the statewide host site for discussion on a national report titled “The Heart of the Matter: the Humanities and Social Sciences” conducted by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences.

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.