Meet Our 2016 Influencers in Aging

Adams has led SAGE, the country’s oldest and largest organization for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender older adults, for more than 10 years. Issues that all aging people face, including health challenges, are often particularly complicated for LGBT older adults. Adams, an attorney, has worked passionately on their behalf. He has reminded policymakers of the legacy of AIDS, for example, and pointed out that many older LGBT adults are living with HIV or are at risk of contracting it. He has spoken out on the lack of caregivers for LGBT adults.

Adams has also worked to forge alliances with other diverse elder groups, and he encourages younger LGBT individuals to honor the historic strides of their predecessors.  

At age 95, Apfel is an unstoppable fashion force who is reclaiming the world of style for older adults with her bold style and anti-ageist messages, including this gem: “I think being interesting is more important than being beautiful.” This businesswoman, designer and fashion icon was hired by nine presidents as the White House designer. In 1948, she married Carl Apfel and together they launched the textile firm Old World Weavers, which they ran until they retired in 1992. She is the subject of the 2014 documentary Iris by Albert Maysles. In 2016, Apfel has appeared in a commercial for a French car, been the face of Australian fashion brand Blue Illusion, launched a line of wearables and created a set of emojis.

Basting is a theater artist and educator who uses creative engagement to explore the possibilities, as well as address the challenges, of aging. She recently was awarded a MacArthur “genius” grant for her innovative TimeSlips method, which uses improvisational storytelling and creative expression to promote well-being in older adults with cognitive impairment. The approach allows those with dementia to replace lost memories with new stories and poems by responding to cues. Basting also has created theater pieces in collaboration with older adults, include The Penelope Project in 2010. She is the author of Forget Memory: Creating Better Lives for People with Dementia and The Penelope Project: An Arts-Based Odyssey to Change Elder Care as well as numerous plays, public performances and articles.

A public policy and strategic consultant (and guest contributor to Next Avenue), Blancato is one of the nation’s leading experts on aging issues. He’s currently board chair of the American Society on Aging; national coordinator of the Elder Justice Coalition, which helped pass the 2010 Elder Justice Act; executive director of the National Association of Nutrition and Aging Services Programs; and volunteer state president of AARP in Virginia.

Previously, Blancato was appointed by President Bill Clinton to direct the 1995 White House Conference on Aging, and he served as president of the National Committee for the Prevention of Elder Abuse and staff director of the House Select Committee on Aging’s Subcommittee on Human Services.

Blandin’s nonprofits have the important job of educating and safeguarding American investors, particularly ones saving for retirement. He works frequently with state securities regulators devising ways to do that — sometimes, in an entertaining way: Blandin’s 2016 public television documentary, When I’m 65, was a rare example of an informative, useful and watchable show about retirement planning.

Three of his many accomplishments: The Elder Investment Fraud and Financial Exploitation Prevention Program, with the North American Securities Administrators Association and the National Adult Protective Services Association; the MoneyTrack public television series and the Campaign for Wise and Safe Investing with the AARP Foundation.

Officially, Borzi is in charge of the Employee Benefits Security Administration, overseeing 681,000 private-sector retirement plans and 2.3 million health plans. Unofficially, she has been the administration’s champion behind its hard-fought, new “fiduciary rule,” ensuring that financial advisers put their retirement-saving clients’ interests ahead of their own. This rule — six years in the making (Borzi’s grandmother called her “the tortoise” for her tenacity) — could save investors millions in unnecessary fees and help them avoid being put into unsuitable investments.

A former high school English teacher, Borzi has served as the pension and employee benefit counsel for a U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor subcommittee. She’s also a former member of the advisory board of the Pension Research Council of The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Carpenter is the founder of EngAGE, a nonprofit that “changes aging and the way people think about aging by transforming senior apartment communities into vibrant centers of learning, wellness and creativity.” It all started when Carpenter had an idea that retirement communities should be more like college — a beginning instead of an ending. His vision became a reality in the Burbank Senior Artists Colony, which broke ground in 2003 and offered high-quality arts courses, such as creative writing, instead of pass-the-time activities, such as bingo. Carpenter was named an Ashoka Fellow for being one of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs in 2008. He is currently expanding his senior artists colony idea to other cities.

Dr. Chernof advances a goal for the country that many Americans recognize as their own personal hope for their older years: that they can hold onto their independence and dignity, and that good-quality health care and other supports will be available to them in a way that respects their individual needs. That recognition of the individual is at the heart of person-centered care, a pillar of Chernof’s vision.

Through public policy efforts and millions of dollars in grants each year (full disclosure: Next Avenue is a grantee), the SCAN Foundation works to improve the systems that surround aging — medical care, long-term care, community-based services — in part by raising awareness of how those systems fall short for many Americans now.

With iRelaunch, Cohen has been a missionary for the cause of aiding female professionals to get back to work after a hiatus — she calls them “relaunchers.” Cohen is striking a chord. Her recent TED Talk, How to Get Back to Work After a Career Break, has attracted more than 1.3 million views online.

One way Cohen propels relaunchers is by finding new ways employers can recruit from their talent pool. The author of Back on the Career Track, she helped originate and lead the STEM Reentry Task Force with the Society of Women Engineers — seven companies piloting re-entry internship programs. It will repeat in 2017 with a new group of companies. iRelaunch has hosted 18 return-to-work conferences in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Since co-authoring the bestselling book Project Renewment: The First Retirement Model for Career Women in 2008, Dennis has been one of the nation’s foremost experts on preparing for the non-financial aspects of retirement. And through her firm specializing in employment and retirement, Dennis has worked with more than 15,000 employees at corporations and universities to do just that. Over 1.3 million readers devour Dennis’ insights and advice in her weekly syndicated column, Successful Aging.

She developed the first national corporate management-training program to prevent age discrimination in the workplace, created innovative programs encouraging older Americans to enter the labor force and has conducted research on employment and retirement issues for AARP and the U.S. Administration on Aging.

He’s been one of the nation’s preeminent and pioneering thinkers about boomers and aging for more than 35 years. So it’s hardly surprising that Dychtwald’s Age Wave client list includes over half the Fortune 500 and that he (along with his wife, Age Wave co-founder Maddy Dychtwald) just received the Esalen Prize for creating a significant impact in the world. Recently chosen to serve as chairman-elect of the American Society on Aging, Dychtwald is a psychologist, gerontologist and bestselling author.

Lately, he and Bank of America have produced groundbreaking, influential research on 21st century retirement. His Harvard Business Review article, “It’s Time to Retire Retirement,” won the prestigious McKinsey Award. Dychtwald served on the board of advisers for Next Avenue’s first Influencers in Aging awards in 2015.

Since 2011, the former Disney Chairman and CEO and his Eisner Foundation have annually awarded The Eisner Prize for Intergenerational Excellence. The cash prize is designed to recognize excellence by an individual or a nonprofit in uniting multiple generations, especially seniors and youth, to bring about positive and lasting changes in their community.

The Eisner Foundation believes that intergenerational solutions provide a multiplier effect, where low-income children and older adults can benefit simultaneously. In 2015, The Eisner Foundation became the only U.S. funder investing exclusively in intergenerational solutions. This year, the foundation will award roughly $7 million in grants to support intergenerational programming in Los Angeles County. Last quarter, it awarded $1.4 million to seven area nonprofits, including $500,000 to Encore.org for its new social action campaign, Generation to Generation. 

At the influential nonprofit Encore.org, whose tagline is “Second Acts for the Greater Good,” Emerman spearheads the group’s noteworthy research initiatives and supervises both the groundbreaking Encore Fellowships program and EncoreU, its higher education initiative. He also played a significant role in developing and directing the Purpose Prize, an award created by Encore.org and now administered by AARP, designed to recognize and invest in social entrepreneurs working after age 60 to solve important problems in their communities and beyond.

Through his speaking and writing (for outlets from Next Avenue to Huffington Post), Emerman has become a significant thought leader in the encore movement. Previously, he was chief operating officer for the American Society on Aging.

In 2004, Epel and her team wrote a groundbreaking paper on how stress impacts aging at the cellular level: It causes a shortening of telomeres, the protective caps on chromosomes. That work has led to a great deal of additional research on personal and social factors in aging. Epel described some of her team’s work in a forthcoming book she co-authored with Elizabeth Blackburn, The Telomere Effect: The New Science of Living Younger, which is being made into a mini-documentary for PBS distribution in 2017.

Epel, who earned her Ph.D. in psychology, goes beyond explaining the problem: She proposes mindfulness training and other interventions to remain resilient and even thrive under stress. This month, she was named to the prestigious National Academy of Medicine.

As head of Grantmakers In Aging, the national society of grantmaking foundations and other organizations that work to improve the lives of older people, Feather is working to change the fact that “Americans don’t want to think about aging.” How? By reframing the conversation to focus on understanding the gaps between what professionals who work in the field of aging know and the perceptions of the public and potential funders. His creative yet business-minded approach has been a hallmark of an estimable career that also has included chairing of the board of directors of the American Society on Aging; serving as treasurer of the National Hispanic Council on Aging; and directing of the AARP Andrus Foundation, the research and education charity of AARP.

An assistant professor of health policy and management at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Finkelstein leads the school’s translation of interdisciplinary scientific knowledge on aging and its societal implications into policy-focused practice. The goal of her policy work is to maximize productivity, quality of life and health across the life course.

To journalists who cover the aging beat, Finkelstein is legendary for four reasons: She is a brilliant, driving force behind Columbia’s Age Boom Academy, an annual program that lets reporters and editors learn from the nation’s leading researchers on the subject. She directs the Age Smart Employer Awards program. She ran the Age-friendly New York City Initiative while working as the senior vice president for policy and planning at The New York Academy of Medicine. And she’s a hoot.

Nurse. Professor. Dean. Researcher. Leader. Terry Fulmer, Ph.D., has held all of these roles throughout a stellar four-decade career, becoming recognized as a top expert in the health of older adults. She has also done important research on abuse and neglect of older adults.

Fulmer currently directs the philanthropic activity of the John A. Hartford Foundation, whose $565 million endowment works to improve older adults’ health. She previously served as dean and distinguished professor of the Bouve College of Health Sciences at Northeastern University and founding dean of the College of Nursing at New York University.

Often dubbed the person who knows anyone who’s anyone in the world of marketing to boomers, Furlong has two intertwined missions — elevating the needs of mature consumers to the business community and encouraging entrepreneurs to see longevity as a business opportunity. She combines them in the popular events she produces annually: the What’s Next Boomer Business Summit (at the American Society on Aging’s Aging in America conference) and the Silicon Valley Boomer Venture Summit.

The author of Turning Silver Into Gold, a book about business and aging, Furlong is also the founder of SeniorNet (a nonprofit specializing in computer and Internet education for adults 55+) and ThirdAge Media (an information source for boomer women).

The youngest mayor of Los Angeles in more than a century, Garcetti is leading the new campaign to make L.A. the “most age-friendly city in the world” through the Purposeful Aging Los Angeles initiative. The three-year plan, which will be done in conjunction with Los Angeles County, will incorporate civic participation and employment, community support and health services and transportation.

Garcetti signed an executive directive to create an age-friendly task force for L.A., whose population of people over 65 is expected to nearly double to 2.1 million in 2030. In 2014, he was the first mayor to sign the Milken Institute’s Best Cities for Successful Aging “Mayor’s Pledge” to make their communities work better for older adults.

This New School for Social Research labor economist, author and Hillary Clinton adviser is something of a provocateur. Ghilarducci talks plainly but boldly about why America’s 401(k) retirement-saving system is an utter failure and needs to be replaced. She’s actually received death threats for her views. Her proposal to help the nation avoid a retirement crisis: mandated, Guaranteed Retirement Accounts for all workers.

No ivory tower wonk, Ghilarducci has written two notable books geared toward a popular audience: How to Retire With Enough Money and How to Know What Enough Is and When I’m Sixty-Four: The Plot Against Pensions and the Plan to Save Them.

Gleckman has become a top authority on issues of long-term care, caregiving and tax policy in his many years as a journalist. Some of that work was informed by his experience caring for his father and father-in-law, which helped spur him to write Caring for Our Parents: Inspiring Stories of Families Seeking New Solutions to America’s Most Urgent Health Care Crisis. He currently writes a regular Caring for Our Parents blog on Forbes.

Gleckman previously spent two decades as senior correspondent in the Washington bureau of Business Week, covering health, elder care and tax issues.

Lujan Grisham was focusing on older adults’ concerns long before she was elected to Congress as a Democrat from New Mexico. She directed the New Mexico state Agency on Aging from 1991 to 2002, and then served as the state’s Secretary of Aging and Long-term Services, where she addressed poor quality of care in nursing homes.

As a Congresswoman, she has brought important national attention to caregiving and is considered one of the few in the Capitol who has deep knowledge of, and commitment to, aging issues. She sponsored the National Care Corps Act, which would establish a corps of qualified volunteers to provide assistance and companionship to older adults. She cares for her own mother in her Albuquerque home.

Gupta co-founded Caring Across Generations in 2011 with Ai-jen Poo (a 2015 Influencer in Aging), guided by a long-term vision of high-quality, accessible care for older adults. Her superior ability to lead by forging relationships and building collaboration has helped bring a number of diverse groups together toward common solutions. For example, Gupta played a key role last year in spurring support for the U.S. Department of Labor’s home care rule decision, which gave home care workers the rights to overtime and a minimum wage.

Gupta also speaks publicly about the reality of being a caregiver; she cares for her father, who suffers from Alzheimer’s.

For more than 30 years, Gibson Hunt has made the needs of family caregivers visible and built a case for programs that support them.

Her alliance coauthors influential caregiver studies used by policymakers. One, on caregivers of post–9/11 veterans, led to a new Veterans Administration program for those families. Other studies shed light on caregivers dealing with cancer or mental illness.

Beyond research, Gibson Hunt drives advocacy for caregivers, from the alliance’s coalition of local and state advocacy groups to her own service on projects such as the 2005 White House Conference on Aging.

While president of the Milken Institute, Irving — author of The Upside of Aging — was zealous on the topic of aging with purpose. So it was only natural that, in 2015, he was chosen as the founding chairman of Milken’s Center for the Future of Aging. Irving, vice chair of Encore.org and a director of the American Society on Aging, was also appointed distinguished scholar in residence at the University of Southern California Davis School of Gerontology at the time.

One of Irving’s most notable achievements: launching the Milken Institute’s Best Cities for Successful Aging initiative, a highly respected evaluation and ranking of U.S. metro areas for older adults. Another: Irving, former chairman and CEO of the Los Angeles-based law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, was a driving force behind Purposeful Aging Los Angeles.

Jones is head of the 43-year-old NCBA (National Caucus & Center on Black Aging), the largest and oldest minority aging organization in the U.S. — and the only one with a singular mission to make aging services for diverse populations a national priority. Jones leads the organization in providing advocacy, affordable housing, health care programs and employment services for aging low-income African Americans and other minorities. She received a Washington Brava Award from SmartCEO magazine for being a top female CEO, an acknowledgement of her ability to develop business opportunities that support the mission. In 2016, Jones was named chair-elect of the American Society on Aging’s board of directors because of her prominence in the field of diversity and aging services.

Through Kelly’s more than 25 years of leadership at the Family Caregiver Alliance (FCA), the organization has provided vital education, services and advocacy for family caregivers, including an online listing with information on services and benefits in their particular state. The FCA also manages an innovative program in Alzheimer’s caregiving through an ongoing grant from the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation. It runs an annual competition among nonprofits for the best programs in creative expression, diverse/multicultural communities and policy and advocacy.

Kelly also heads the organization’s research arm, the National Center on Caregiving. And she has actively promoted the use of technology in care settings to help make the lives of caregivers easier.

Kleyman has been covering aging longer than nearly any other journalist. He spent 20 years as editor of Aging Today, the newspaper of the American Society on Aging. His book, Senior Power: Growing Old Rebelliously, was among the first trade press titles on the subject. These days, Kleyman is the go-to person for reporters new to the aging beat.

He is national coordinator of the Journalists Network on Generations and director of the Ethnic Elders Newsbeat at New America Media. His Generations Beat Online e-newsletter informs journalists of the latest, best articles on aging; key fellowships and programs and other journalism developments on this vital topic. Kleyman was a fellow at Columbia University’s Age Boom Academy and the University of Southern California Annenberg Center for Health Journalism.

Dr. Lachs is a renowned geriatrician and gerontologist who has devoted his career to the care of the disenfranchised, including victims of physical, emotional, sexual and financial abuse. At Weill Cornell Medical College, his recent research includes a study of the prevalence of resident-to-resident mistreatment in nursing homes and the development of a unique protocol for photographing injuries of victims who come to the emergency department.

And Lachs confronted “medical ageism” in his 2010 book, Treat Me, Not My Age, which examined how older patients’ concerns are often dismissed — or overtreated — based on their age.

Lear is the well-known, revered television writer and producer who created such 1970s sitcoms as All in the Family, Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons, Good Times and Maude. As a political activist, he founded the advocacy organization People for the American Way in 1981 and has supported First Amendment rights and progressive causes. Now 94, Lear has become an outspoken critic of ageism, taking on the subject in TED talks, on his popular Facebook page and in interviews with the media. One of his current complaints: the roadblocks he has run into trying to get television networks interested in his idea for a comedy series about a retirement home. He is the author of the memoir Even This I Get to Experience, published in 2014, and the subject of a PBS documentary, Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You.

Through the Families and Health Care Project, Levine focuses on developing partnerships between health professionals and family caregivers to make the transitions between health care settings less stressful. For example, she collaborated with Susan Reinhard of AARP on a successful effort to legislate better communication between hospitals and caregivers.

Levine has written and spoken widely on government policies needed to help caregivers. Her expertise on the subject comes in part from the 17 years she spent as caregiver for her husband after a catastrophic auto accident. She has edited several books, including Living in the Land of Limbo: Fiction and Poetry about Family Caregiving. In 2014, she wrote Planning For Long-Term Care For Dummies.

Can thoughts influence reality? Becca Levy, Ph.D., has studied that question in depth, finding that the perceptions of aging we glean from our culture can influence health as we get older. In an important series of studies, the Yale psychologist has examined how age stereotypes influence memory, physical ability and cardiovascular response to stress. The New York Times called Levy “the researcher who has done more than anyone else to advance our understanding of this.”

This year, Levy published research showing that individuals with negative age stereotypes exhibited, decades later, “significantly steeper” brain loss and a greater accumulation of the plaques and tangles associated with Alzheimer’s disease, suggesting “a new pathway to identifying … potential interventions” for Alzheimer’s.

With 30 years working in aging and long-term care as a health services researcher and administrator, Lindeman has become an advocate for using technology to support the independence of older adults. The director of CTA (the Center for Technology and Aging) and co-director of CITPH (Center for Innovation and Technology in Public Health) and CITRIS (Center for Information Technology Research in the Interests of Society) is sought-after for his expertise on the loss of independence that comes from the inability to continue to drive. As such, Lindeman’s work supports technological innovations like autonomous cars that will allow people to maintain medical appointments, recreational activities and social engagements without the help of a caregiver or service. “For everyone with mobility limitations, it will be a game changer,” he told Next Avenue last year.

As a practicing geriatrician for four decades, Dr. Lindsay has personally witnessed the effects of caregiving on his patients’ family members and has experienced it himself through caring for his mother. Lindsay founded the Lindsay Institute for Innovations in Caregiving in 2013 to “preserve and improve the wellness of family caregivers, with a special focus on the Alzheimer’s caregiver.” He works as a project consultant for the institute.

Since retiring from the University of Virginia, where he founded and directed the Division of Geriatric Medicine, Lindsay continues to teach medical students. Throughout his career, Lindsay has been a thought leader, demonstrating an enthusiasm for adopting and promoting innovation and fresh ideas.

The word “Svayus” means “life full of vigor.” That’s the kind of life Makesh is trying to create for the people with Alzheimer’s who come to his facilities for care. As the CEO of The Lantern, with three locations in Ohio, Makesh is using an inventive combination of therapies, design thinking and technology to create what he calls a Svayus approach to memory care: “a time capsule designed to cue and retrieve memories to enable our clients to live a life that is cheerful, brimming with happiness and vigor.” His approach includes designing facilities that remind residents of their childhood to put them at ease and reduce the agitation and anxiety that often plagues those with dementia and Alzheimer’s.

The Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (from which a six-hour PBS documentary was produced), has turned his attention most recently to the intersection of genes and the environment — and how they influence disease. But The Gene: An Intimate History, is no dry study of biology. In a  Washington Post review of the book, Andrew Solomon wrote that Dr. Mukherjee “swaddles his medical rigor with rhapsodic tenderness, surprising vulnerability and occasional flashes of pure poetry.” Ken Burns just recently purchased the rights to adapt The Gene for PBS.

Mukherjee says the goal of his Columbia University laboratory research is to develop novel strategies against blood diseases like myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and acute myelogenous leukemia (AML).

How long can humans live? Olshansky has argued that merely adding more years to life should not be our primary goal. The University of Chicago sociologist has devoted his career to studying how to extend the healthy years and “compress” sickness and disease to the very end.

Olshansky coined the term “the longevity dividend” — the social, economic and health benefits we would see through efforts to slow biological aging. He predicts that slowing aging will be the next big public health advance in this century. One recent effort he’s involved in: a study of the ability of metformin, a diabetes drug, to slow the aging process.

Reinhard is recognized nationally as a top expert in long-term care and health policy and serves as lead planner for AARP’s research and analysis in those areas. She then translates that work into action to change policy.

An example: Reinhard, who holds a Ph.D. in sociology, collaborated with Carol Levine of United Hospital Fund to produce reports that paved the way for legislation that has now passed in 30 states. The Caregiver Advise, Record, Enable (CARE) Act requires that hospitals note the name of a caregiver on a patient’s file, communicate with that caregiver when the patient is going to be discharged and give instructions on home care the patient may need.

For years, Richtman has been a powerhouse in Washington, D.C., representing and championing senior groups, most notably as the current president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare — the nation’s second-largest grassroots organization devoted to the retirement future of Americans. This year, to help older voters learn where the presidential contenders stood on key issues affecting them, Richtman and the 72-member LCAO (Leadership Council of Aging Organizations) held Seniors Decide 2016 in February at George Mason University and streamed nationwide. It was offered in conjunction with Compassion and Choices, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, AARP and Next Avenue. All the Republican and Democratic candidates were invited to attend; Sen. Bernie Sanders did a live video interview and a proxy for Gov. John Kasich answered questions in person.

Richtman was formerly staff director of the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging. There, he developed legislation to establish a Consumer Price Index for the Elderly, to produce a more accurate cost of living adjustment for Social Security beneficiaries.

Sabatino has devoted more than three decades to his work at the American Bar Association, specializing in research and project development in health law, long-term care planning and access to legal services for older adults. He has also written and spoken widely on advance care planning. In addition, Sabatino has shared his expertise with students at Georgetown University Law Center as an adjunct professor in elder law since 1987.

Sabatino served as president of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys and has been active in the organization’s public policy efforts. His work on elder law issues began at the ground level, when he joined Legal Services of Northern Virginia as senior citizens project counsel.

He has worked with Age Wave’s Ken Dychtwald (another 2016 Influencer in Aging) to spearhead a series of groundbreaking retirement studies over the past two years. A panelist at the 2015 White House Conference on Aging, Sieg is a leading voice in the U.S. business community on redefining aging. In March, he led a fireside chat at New York City’s Museum of American Finance on “The Longevity Bonus: The Economic Impact of the Retirement Megatrend,” discussing how corporations, NGOs and the government can better prepare Americans for longer lives and retirements.

Under his leadership, Bank of America Merrill Lynch offers a training program developed with the University of Southern California’s Davis School of Gerontology for human resources and benefit plan professionals to bring greater awareness of the changing needs of America’s aging population. On Jan. 1, 2017, Sieg will become head of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management.

Simmons has led Partners in Care Foundation in developing, funding and operating innovative new models of health care delivery for older adults, because the existing models too often fail. A visionary in the field, she and her group work to better coordinate care, devise ways to help older adults manage chronic conditions and equip them for the challenges of aging.

Simmons founded the organization after working for 20 years as a social worker and administrator for a Pasadena, Calif., hospital. She has been blunt about her frustration with the health care system’s failures: “We won’t spend money helping you avoid a stroke or a fall or complications from diabetes. We’ll wait until you’re almost dead, then we’ll pay for care.”

At 95, Soskin exemplifies the ability to continue working and pursuing your passion late in life. At the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, Calif., which she helped plan, Soskin conducts park tours and serves as an interpreter. A descendent of slaves, she was called by the Oakland Tribune “a tireless voice for making sure the African-American wartime experience — both the positive steps toward integration and the presence of discrimination — has a prominent place in the park’s history.”

In June, Soskin was attacked and robbed in her home, an experience she says taught her “I could take care of myself.” In September, she presented the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture with a photo of the convent of the nation’s first all-black religious order, built by her grandfather.

Spencer’s federal agency, the Corporation for National and Community Service, administers programs including Senior Corps, Senior Companions, Foster Grandparents and RSVP, one of the largest volunteer networks in the nation for people 55 and over. More than 270,000 volunteers age 55+ are currently serving through Senior Corps’ three programs. Some may be boosting their odds of getting hired. Spencer says volunteering doesn’t just make you feel good, “it also helps your career — it’s a tough job market and people are looking for advantages.”

Previously CEO of the Florida Governor’s Commission on Volunteerism, Spencer recently announced an Elder Justice AmeriCorps partnership with the Department of Justice awarding $2 million for legal assistance and support to victims of elder abuse, neglect and exploitation, most of whom are women.

Since joining CBS in 1972, Stahl has covered the White House, interviewed heads of state, won 12 Emmys and spent 25 years as a correspondent for 60 Minutes. But ask this respected television journalist — a trailblazer for women in the field — what the most transformative experience of her life has been and she’ll say it was becoming a grandparent. Known for her political scoops as well as compelling stories that shed light on how we live, Stahl has broadcast many reports on 60 Minutes about growing older. In 2016, she decided to take a journalistic approach to the subject of grandparenting, releasing the book Becoming Grandma: The Joys and Science of the New Grandparenting.

Stanford’s work in aging has been integral to the development of the field. He helped create the first university programs, including at San Diego State, where he taught for three decades after earning a Ph.D. in sociology/gerontology. He founded and directed the National Institute on Minority Aging, an annual conference that was held for many years. And he has been involved in the establishment and nurture of other key groups, such as the American Society on Aging and the Gerontological Society of America.

After serving as senior vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer at AARP, Stanford co-founded Folding Voice, which consults with businesses on aging and diversity issues. His new book, Diversity: New Approaches to Ethnic Minority Aging, is due out in January.

In her position at Johns Hopkins’ nursing school, Szanton explores how older adults’ environment and stress can affect their health and well-being. The direction of her work was forged from insights she gained early in her career while making house calls to low-income Baltimore elders as a nurse practitioner. She has since developed CAPABLE, an innovative program providing handyman and nursing services to older adults aging in place that has increased mobility, lowered rates of depression and reduced disability by half. 

Importantly, Szanton, who earned her Ph.D. in nursing, is actively sharing her model, and her work has sparked keen interest in state and national policy circles.

Tenenbaum’s Homes Renewed group coalesces groups with an interest in upgrading the nation’s housing to better enable aging in place — work that recently led him to win the HIVE 100 Housing Innovators Award. He has forged a coalition to lobby for tax incentives  that would help older Americans upgrade their homes so they may age in place more easily and successfully. And this idea is now a bipartisan bill in Congress: The Senior Accessible Housing Act, which would provide a tax credit of up to $30,000 for aging-in-place home modifications.

Tenenbaum was also part of the original National Endowment for the Arts meeting that proposed what became the Certified Aging in Place Specialist program, a partnership between the National Association of Home Builders and AARP.

Leading the public policy development, analysis and research effort on behalf of AARP’s nearly 38 million members isn’t easy. But it’s critically important for Americans age 50 and older and their families. Whitman’s role overseeing AARP’s influential Public Policy Institute is especially significant because this think tank does formidable work to help shape legislative priorities and legislation. She worked with the financial industry to lead the creation of a national program fighting the financial exploitation of older Americans, AARP’s BankSafe Initiative.

Her previous jobs as staff director for the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, specialist in the economics of aging for the Congressional Research Service and researcher on savings and retirement for the Social Security Administration only add to Whitman’s clout and credibility at the Capitol.