Science for public good

Firstly, can you tell us a bit about yourself and what led you to the Academy?

I'm a historian and anthropologist by training, and throughout my career I've been fascinated by the relationship between knowledge and society, how ideas are produced, who has access to them, and how they shape the world we live in. I've spent much of my professional life in universities, including Columbia University and UC Berkeley, where I served as Chancellor.

What drew me to The New York Academy of Sciences was the opportunity to work at the intersection of research, education, public engagement, and global impact. The Academy has a remarkable history stretching back more than two centuries, with members such as Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison, and Margaret Mead, but what interested me most was not simply its legacy. It was the possibility of helping one of the world's oldest scientific institutions play an even more meaningful role in addressing contemporary challenges whether that be climate change, pandemic preparedness, or advances in AI. We live in a moment when science is more important than ever, but also more contested. The Academy is uniquely positioned to connect scientific expertise with public understanding and action.

Can you tell us about the Academy's mission and what goals and projects you're currently most passionate about?

At its core, the Academy's mission is to drive innovative solutions to society's most pressing challenges by advancing science, education, and policy. That sounds broad, but it translates into very practical work. More importantly, all of us do this work with a mantra in mind: “science for the public good”.

I'm particularly passionate about three areas. The first is strengthening the connection between science and society in this era of misinformation. We live in a time where public trust in institutions is low and this includes institutions of science learning and research. And so part of our role is to rebuild that trust ensuring that research informs public decision-making and that the public has greater confidence in scientific knowledge and institutions. We are doing this through projects like our Center for AI and Emerging Technologies which we are working to build.

The second is investing in the next generation of scientific talent through our educational and mentoring programs, especially for young researchers around the world. The Academy runs ‘Innovation Challenges’ designed to stretch minds across New York and around the world and allow them to collaborate and work together with their peers on some of the shared global challenges and opportunities whether that be agricultural sustainability or robotic automation. We also celebrate young scientists through the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists which recognises exceptional early-career achievements across the Life Sciences, Chemical Sciences, and Physical Sciences & Engineering.

And the third area I am passionate about is supporting interdisciplinary work on issues like climate change, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and global health, challenges that simply cannot be solved within a single field or by a single country. As an historian leading a scientific institution, this interdisciplinary approach comes naturally to me but I also work in concert with one of the Academy’s most important roles, which is to convene people who wouldn’t naturally meet together. We do this through our conferences, programs, and Fellowships, and by working to build networks and partnerships across industry, academia, government, and civil society in ways that formulate more inclusive, sustainable, and productive solutions to today’s challenges.

The Academy is over 200 years old. How do you feel the scope has changed over that time and what, if anything, do you think will define the Academy's role in the future?

When the Academy was founded in 1817, science was far less specialized, and institutions like ours primarily served as places where scholars and innovators could convene, exchange ideas, and advance knowledge.

That fundamental purpose remains, but the scale and complexity of today's challenges have transformed the context. Scientific expertise is now highly distributed across disciplines, sectors, and geographies. At the same time, problems such as climate change, pandemic preparedness, AI governance, and sustainability are inherently global. Finally, given that more communication channels and social media exist now, when we bring scientists together, we also think about our added value in terms of interdisciplinary conversations, being a trusted platform, and also our global partnerships in an era where nation-to-nation ties are being strained.

I think the Academy's future role will be defined less by being a repository of scientific expertise and more by being a trusted convenor. Our value lies in bringing together scientists, policymakers, industry leaders, educators, and the public, in a neutral and trusted space, to tackle problems that no single institution can solve alone. Connection and collaboration will be just as important as discovery itself.

The Academy convenes over 120 symposia a year. How much of that thinking ever reaches beyond the people in the room, and is that a gap you'd like to close?

It's a very important question because convening alone is not enough. Through surveys and conversations, however, we have come to realize that our convenings often – in fact in at least a third of the cases we know – change the course and direction of research, through collaborations, new insights, and new science that is learned.

Additionally, although many of our scientific meetings are designed primarily for specialists speaking to specialists, we encourage various forms of outreach and dissemination even in the most technical of domains. The Academy has increasingly focused on extending the reach of those discussions through publications, digital programming, podcasts like Shaping Science which I host on Spotify, YouTube and Apple, videos, and partnerships with media and policy organizations. But I do think there's more work to do.

One of the great challenges of our time is translating expert knowledge into trusted formats that are accessible without oversimplifying the science. If a symposium generates important insights but those insights never reach educators, community leaders, policymakers, or the broader public, we've missed an opportunity. Closing that gap is one of the most important priorities for institutions like ours.

You've spoken about restoring public trust in science. Where do you see the biggest disconnect right now, between the research itself and how it's presented?

I think one disconnect comes from a misunderstanding of how science actually works. Science is a process of inquiry, testing, revision, and continual refinement. Uncertainty isn't a weakness of science; it's one of its strengths.

Yet public conversations often demand definitive answers and immediate certainty. When scientific understanding evolves, as it naturally does, people can mistakenly see that as inconsistency rather than evidence that the process is working. We saw that play out during the COVID-19 pandemic which led to conspiracy theories and misinformation. It is our job to help better communicate the nature of scientific methods and how the process of knowledge creation, dissemination, and application actually works in practice.

Another challenge is that scientific findings increasingly reach the public through fragmented information ecosystems where complexity can be lost and misinformation can spread rapidly. Researchers need to communicate more effectively, but institutions also need to create more opportunities for meaningful dialogue. Trust is not built through information alone. It is built through relationships, transparency, and sustained engagement – especially with disenfranchised communities that may have had a difficult relationship with institutions, particularly in the healthcare field.

With members in 100 countries, how do you keep the Academy's output feeling relevant to someone in Nairobi or Jakarta rather than just New York?

The first step is recognizing that scientific knowledge and scientific leadership are genuinely global. Some of the most innovative work addressing health, sustainability, technology, and education is happening far beyond traditional centers of influence.

We work with researchers, institutions, and partners across the world, and we try to ensure that our programs are informed by diverse perspectives rather than simply exported from one location to another. Projects such as our International Science Reserve, where scientists work together to prepare for crises, is a good example where learning how, for example, an Australian scientist or policy maker deals with wildfires helps someone here at home think about wildfire mitigation approaches in a different way. The global challenges facing Nairobi, Jakarta, São Paulo, and New York may differ in their local manifestations, but they're increasingly connected through global systems and processes.

The Academy's role is not to speak for the world from New York. It's to help create a global conversation in which expertise, experience, and solutions flow in multiple directions. This is an important role which I see as part of ‘scientific diplomacy’ – a historic role that the Academy has always played (for example, during the Cold War) but is increasingly important in today’s world given all the geopolitical tensions that exist. Global conversations, especially between scientists, still have to happen and our Academy will be part of ensuring that it does.

What does success look like for the Academy's public voice over the next five years?

Success would mean becoming an even more trusted, visible, and accessible source of scientific insight for both public audiences and decision-makers.

I would like to see the Academy reaching audiences that may never attend one of our conferences or read a scientific journal but who nevertheless care deeply about issues like health, education, technology, and the environment. I would also like our work to have greater influence in shaping policy discussions and helping leaders make better-informed decisions. Ultimately, success isn't measured by how often we speak. It's measured by whether we help people better understand the challenges they face and whether we contribute to better outcomes as a result.

What do you feel is currently the most important unaddressed issue in research?

If I had to identify one issue, it would be the growing gap between the production of scientific or technological knowledge and our capacity to anticipate and then act wisely to better prepare for the issues raised by the dizzying rate of progress.

We are generating extraordinary scientific insights across countless fields. The challenge is increasingly social, political, and institutional rather than purely scientific. We know far more about climate change than we have been able to act upon. We understand many of the drivers of inequality, public health crises, and educational disparities. We are developing transformative technologies faster than we are developing frameworks for their governance.

The question is not simply what we still need to discover. It is how we build the trust, institutions, and forms of collaboration necessary to apply what we already know. Bridging that gap – and it will take all the resources and participation possible across multiple disciplines and sectors to do so -- may be the defining challenge for research in the twenty-first century.