[Cambridge, MA | April 22, 2026] – Today the American Academy of Arts & Sciences announced its newest members – the 252 leaders in academia, the arts, industry, journalism, philanthropy, policy, research, and science elected in 2026.
“We celebrate the achievement of each new member and the collective breadth and depth of their excellence – this is a fitting commemoration of the nation’s 250th anniversary,” said Academy President Laurie Patton. “The founding of the nation and the Academy are rooted in the inextricable links between a vibrant democracy, the free pursuit of knowledge, and the expansion of the public good.”
The Academy, chartered in 1780, was established to recognize accomplished individuals and engage them in addressing the greatest challenges facing the young republic. The first members elected to the Academy include George Washington, who said – in his first annual message to Congress in 1790 – “Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.”
The Academy has not wavered in its commitment to recognizing excellence, but its membership has changed through the increasing diversity of its members and the broader array of expertise they possess. The new members include:
- Environmental scientist and GIS technologist Jack Dangermond (Esri)
- Art critic and curator Nicole Fleetwood (New York University)
- Actor and filmmaker Jodie Foster
- Psychometrician Andrew D. Ho (Harvard Graduate School of Education)
- Anthropologist and ethnographer John L. Jackson (University of Pennsylvania)
- Author Barbara Kingsolver
- Immunologist Alan J. Korman (BlueSphere Bio)
- Industrial Designer Deana C. McDonagh (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)
- Actor, dancer, and singer Rita Moreno
- Computer scientist and entrepreneur Shwetak Patel (University of Washington)
- Mathematician Nataša Pavlović (University of Texas at Austin)
- Organizational leader Carol E. Quillen (National Trust for Historic Preservation)
- Neurobiologist Doris Tsao (University of California, Berkeley)
- Author Colson Whitehead
International Honorary Members from 14 countries were elected including pediatrician, politician, and public health educator Agnes Binagwaho (Rwanda), theoretical physicist Ashoke Sen (India), and poet Raúl Zurita (Chile).
“We invite all of our members to celebrate their election and to join in the Academy’s work advancing the common good across the arts, democracy, education, global affairs, and science,” said Chair of the Board Goodwin Liu, Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court. “Our nonpartisan and interdisciplinary commitment to knowledge and democracy began in 1780 and continues in 2026 with pursuits never more important than they are now. We know such endeavors will be expanded and deepened by these newest members.”
Click here for the complete list of members elected in 2026
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), Esther Duflo (2009), John Legend (2017), Anna Deavere Smith (2019), Salman Rushdie (2022), Xuedong Huang (2023), and José Andrés (2025).
Induction ceremonies for new members will take place in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in October 2026.
Learn more about the Academy and its history.
