On March 9, 2025, the Academy’s Los Angeles Committee hosted an event for members and guests on Science and Creativity. The program began with welcome remarks from Academy President Laurie L. Patton, followed by the presentation of the Rumford Prize to Andrea M. Ghez and then a brief introduction from Cynthia M. Friend (The Kavli Foundation; Harvard University). The program continued with a discussion on how creativity and imagination fuel scientific discovery, and how science inspires artistic expression. The discussion, moderated by Thomas F. Rosenbaum (California Institute of Technology), featured Andrea M. Ghez (University of California, Los Angeles), Kip S. Thorne (California Institute of Technology), and Risa H. Wechsler (Stanford University). An edited transcript of the program follows. The event was supported in part by The Kavli Foundation.

At a program hosted by the Academy’s New Haven Program Committee, Linda Greenhouse (New York Times columnist and Senior Research Scholar in Law at Yale Law School) discussed the United States Supreme Court’s transformational year and the challenges to Roe v. Wade.

The class speakers at the Induction Ceremony explored several themes, including the value of curiosity and the unexpected; strategies to prevent scientific failures with harmful consequences; the role of the social sciences in addressing the urgent challenges of today; the processes of transformation and translation; and how openness fosters innovative and sustainable problem-solving. The ceremony featured presentations from theoretical astrophysicist Charles F. Gammie, research ecologist Helene Muller-Landau, lawyer and legal scholar Daniel E. Ho, writer and translator Jhumpa Lahiri, and economist and nonprofit leader Cecilia A. Conrad. An edited version of their presentations follows.