April 23, 2025 | Cambridge, MA – Since 1780, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences has honored excellence and convened leaders from across disciplines and divides to examine new ideas, address issues of importance, and work together “to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.”
The Academy’s founders – including John Adams and John Hancock – envisioned an organization that would recognize accomplished individuals and engage them in meeting the nation’s challenges. The first members elected to the Academy in 1781 included Benjamin Franklin and George Washington.
The newest members, announced today, have distinguished themselves in academia, the arts, industry, policy, research, and science.
“These new members’ accomplishments speak volumes about the human capacity for discovery, creativity, leadership, and persistence. They are a stellar testament to the power of knowledge to broaden our horizons and deepen our understanding,” said Academy President Laurie L. Patton. “We invite every new member to celebrate their achievement and join the Academy in our work to promote the common good.”
The nearly 250 members elected in 2025 include:
Founder and Chief Feeding Officer José Andrés, World Central Kitchen
Quantum physicist and information theorist Charles H. Bennett, IBM Research
News anchor Anderson Cooper, CNN
Filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer Ava DuVernay
Actor, producer, and humanitarian Danny Glover
Interdisciplinary scholar of antiquity Leslie V. Kurke, University of California, Berkeley
Director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies Yuval Levin, American Enterprise Institute
Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella,
Attorney and playwright Mary Kathryn Nagle
Cancer geneticist Kenneth Offit, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Architect and architectural historian Nasser Rabbat, MIT
Synthetic chemist Gregory H. Robinson, University of Georgia
Legal scholar Daniel B. Rodriguez, Northwestern University
Activist and journalist Gloria Steinem,
Professor of Economics and of Computer Science Philipp Strack, Yale University
Novelist Amy Tan
Microbiologist Susan Weiss, University of Pennsylvania
There are International Honorary Members from 16 countries – from Australia to Zimbabwe – including plant biologist Felix Dapare Dakora, Tshwane University of Technology (Ghana), epigeneticist Edith Heard, College de France (France), and anthropologist Yasushi Watanabe, Keio University (Japan).
“The Academy honors excellence across a wide range of disciplines and professions, and our newly elected members have demonstrated expertise and leadership of astonishing breadth and impact,” said Chair of the Board Goodwin Liu, Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court. “We look forward to engaging their diverse talents and experiences through Academy initiatives that bring interdisciplinary inquiry and unfettered pursuit of knowledge to bear on our society's greatest challenges.”
For the complete list of members elected in 2025, click HERE.
The new class joins Academy members elected before them, including Benjamin Franklin (elected 1781) and Alexander Hamilton (1791) in the eighteenth century; Ralph Waldo Emerson (1864), Maria Mitchell (1848), and Charles Darwin (1874) in the nineteenth; Albert Einstein (1924), Robert Frost (1931), Margaret Mead (1948), Milton Friedman (1959), Martin Luther King, Jr. (1966), and Jacques Derrida (1985) in the twentieth; and, in this century, Madeleine K. Albright (2001), Antonin Scalia (2003), Jennifer Doudna (2003), John Legend (2017), David W. Miliband (2018), Anna Deavere Smith (2019), Salman Rushdie (2022), and Xuedong Huang (2023).
Induction ceremonies for new members will take place in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in October 2025.
Learn more about the Academy and its history.
Media contact: Alison Franklin / AFranklin@amacad.org / 617-576-5043