Founded in 1780, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences honors excellence and convenes leaders from every field of human endeavor to examine new ideas, address issues of importance to the nation and the world, and work together, as expressed in our charter, “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.” Our studies have helped set the direction of research and analysis in science and technology policy, global security and international affairs, social policy, education, and the arts and humanities.

 

Notable members – from our founders John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Maria Mitchell, and Alexander Graham Bell.  Other distinguished members have included Margaret Mead, Jonas Salk, Barbara McClintock, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Aaron Copland, Martha Graham, John Hope Franklin, Georgia O’Keeffe, E. O. Wilson, Madeleine Albright, and Colin Powell. International Honorary Members have included Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Wislawa Szymborska, Laurence Olivier, Mary Leakey, Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Akira Kurosawa, and Nelson Mandela. Our current members represent today’s innovative thinkers in every field and profession, including more than two hundred and fifty Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners.