To coincide with ASA’s Membership Celebration, and feature people who represent the depth and breadth of what we do, we asked 5 ASA members to answer 5 questions. We’ll run the short profiles across the course of the Celebration.
Five Questions for Arielle Galinsky
Arielle Galinsky is 23 years old, studying for her Juris Doctorate at Yale Law and her master’s in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Also CEO of The Legacy Project, which she started as a high school junior, she joined ASA in 2023 and in 2024 served as an intern, working with Julia Burrowes to plan ASA Hill Day to support Older Americans Act provisions for nutrition programs serving Indigenous elders.
1. What inspired you to work in the aging field?
My passion for a career in aging stems from my love of intergenerational connection and witnessing my grandmother’s struggles navigating long-term care. I worked in a senior community in my hometown for several years throughout high school—it is where The Legacy Project, now a national nonprofit connecting youngers and olders for intergenerational storytelling, was born. Throughout the first year of the pandemic, I spent every week engaging with 60–70 older adults in my community, serving as a “social isolation” coach. Although I was there to support them in lifting up their needs, I came to realize that these conversations were my own lifeline during an extremely isolating time.
Around that same time, my grandmother, my rock, was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia. Her condition quickly spiraled, and she cycled through seven facilities over the course of one year as each place failed to meet her evolving needs. As part of her care team, I witnessed firsthand the shortcomings of the long-term care (LTC) system, in terms of affordability challenges, accessibility barriers, and absence of support that defined much of the LTC system.
I knew I wanted to dedicate my career to the field of aging—it’s funny, when I tell my 20-something peers that this is my passion, the reply is almost always, “That’s so niche!” But anyone in this field knows it’s anything but. My largest foci are intergenerational engagement as a solution to the loneliness crisis, advancing state and national long-term care insurance reform, and bringing more young people into the gerontology field.
2. What are you most proud of in your work in aging?
Bringing a fresh perspective on aging by emphasizing the “young person” view. It seems to finally be catching on—and I am continuously grateful for the opportunity to share these perspectives at conferences and on podcasts! I was ecstatic to see the response to the Teen Vogue article that was published. To see both youth caregivers and advocates come forward with an interest in generating a larger conversation on these topics, and long-standing champions thinking about creating an intergenerational perspective in their work, was, to put it simply, exciting!
3. What have you learned from the people you’ve met through ASA?
The ASA community thrives because of the wide range of interests, expertise and contributions its members bring! This is so key for collaboration—the connections I have made at On Aging conferences have allowed me to partner with other intergenerational innovators, direct service providers, and long-term care insurance experts—all of this has strengthened the work of The Legacy Project and my long-term care financing advocacy! Also, data is key, and the ASA community has shown me that partnering to create a unified dataset helps us paint a compelling picture to grantmakers and policymakers.
4. What do you think is most needed in the aging field right now?
Perhaps an unsurprising response coming from me, but I think there is great need to have more intergenerational engagement and perspective in the aging field. At most conferences I attend on aging topics, I am one of very few Gen Z advocates in the room. If we want to build systems and services that meet the needs of present and future older adults, we must bring more Gen Z, Gen Alpha, Millennials, you name it, into these spaces—that is the only way we will build long-term multigenerational trust and success! We also need to get this issue to resonate with younger people, and I believe the best way to do that is by providing a seat at the table to share viewpoints.
5. What’s one question you love to ask your peers?
Aging is not a “sexy” topic—but it is so critical for us to normalize talking about it! My question would be: “How do you speak to aging challenges to people in your orbit?”
If you’d like to participate in this type of 5-questions profile, please email Alison Biggar at abiggar@asaging.org.