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

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has received a $750,000 grant from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to advance the Academy's work on statistical indicators for the humanities.

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.

Stephanie Sy interviewed Daedalus contributor Joseph Felter about his article "Limiting Civilian Casualties as Part of a Winning Strategy: The Case for Courageous Restraint," co-authored with Jacob N. Shapiro.

Temple Grandin discussed the education of students who have different kinds of minds, as well as her own upbringing and work experience as a woman with autism.

Ronald Ehrenberg assesses the merits of the society job advertisements as data for measuring trends in academic employment for the humanities and offers some guidance on how they should be read.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has unleashed a humanitarian catastrophe, but Ukraine is only the most visible example of contemporary conflicts subjecting populations to systematic violence and depriving them of life-saving humanitarian assistance. In Ethiopia, Sudan, Yemen, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the eroding purchase of international humanitarian law, combined with intensifying geopolitical competition and the rapidly changing character of modern warfare, have put enormous strain on humanitarian actors. An issue of Daedalus explores the conflicts and the implications.

A dinner discussion on DNA and Art: In Search of the Genome of Leonardo da Vinci, featuring Jesse H. Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment at The Rockefeller University and introductory remarks from Kenneth Wallach (Central National Gottesman Inc.) who cochairs the New York Program Committee.

A national survey of the public from June 2024 offers insights into how often the public engages with various aspects of the arts and humanities.

"Much of the biological variability I encountered in my childhood stays vividly with me now and very much forms part of my ongoing research drive."

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.

An article by Martha Nussbaum

On March 6, 2019, Douglas E. Soltis and Pamela S. Soltis spoke at the Academy about a project that harnesses algorithm development, computer power, and DNA sequencing to create a comprehensive visual Tree of Life. The program, which served as the 2079th Stated Meeting of the Academy, included a welcome from President David W. Oxtoby and an introduction from Scott Vernon Edwards.

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.

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.

When I took office as President in 2019, I quickly realized that one of the great joys of this role is the opportunity to travel to meet with members of our remarkable community. During 2019–2020, I visited some of our largest member communities in New York, Chicago, and the San Francisco Bay area; smaller member groups in locations such as Dallas, St. Louis, and Nashville; and many international members in places such as Colombia, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

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.

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.