On March 30, 2025, the Academy’s Chicago Committee hosted an event for members and guests that explored the role of cultural organizations and the communities they serve. The program featured Leah A. Dickerman (The Museum of Modern Art) and Oskar Eustis (The Public Theater) in conversation with Academy President Laurie L. Patton. An edited transcript of the program follows.
A protracted debate within the Academy over Darwin’s Origin of Species began with a paper on Japanese flora presented by Asa Gray in 1858, leading to an exchange between Louis Agassiz and William Barton Rogers...
Institutions are critical to our personal and societal well-being. They facilitate relationships; they regulate behavior. They develop and disseminate knowledge, enforce the law, keep us healthy, and uphold social and religious norms.
Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, elected to the Academy in 2022, have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2023. They shared insights into their pioneering work on mRNA vaccines in an Academy conversation earlier this year.
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has named Victor Seow the recipient of its Sarton Prize for the History of Science, recognizing his exceptional promise and distinguished achievements as an emerging scholar in the field.
The Academy hosted a meeting at the University of Chicago on the benefits and risks of nuclear, biological, and information technologies. The speakers included Robert Rosner, James M. Acton, Elisa D. Harris, and Herbert Lin.
The 2011 Induction weekend included a symposium on American Institutions and a Civil Society, which featured two panel discussions: The American Military and American Democracy and The Constitution, the Practice of Democracy, and Unintended Consequences.
Sterling Speirn served on the 35-member Academy commission and talks about his life's work and this initiative of "civic, cultural and political reforms that could inspire a democratic renaissance at this crucial moment."
As part of the Academy’s 2017 Induction weekend, Kathryn D. Sullivan discussed her experiences as a NASA astronaut and participated in a conversation with David M. Rubenstein.
Lassina Zerbo, Rose E. Gottemoeller, Siegfried Hecker, and Robert Rosner participated in a discussion on the prospects for ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and the challenges presented by nuclear testing.
The Winter 2022 issue of Daedalus, "Creating a New Moral Political Economy," explores what it would take to develop an economy that promotes more equal footing across the polity, marketplace, and workplace. Daedalus is an open access publication and all 11 essays and 22 responses are online.
