15 Journalists from Across U.S. Awarded Aging-Focused Fellowships
The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) and the Journalists Network on Generations are welcoming 15 distinguished reporters for the next class of the Journalists in Aging Fellows Program, now in its 17th year.
They represent a wide range of general audience, ethnic, and community media outlets, including local and national publications and online outlets. This year’s group brings the program’s total number of participating reporters to 272. The new fellows were chosen — by a panel of gerontological and editorial professionals — based on their proposals for an in-depth aging-focused story or series.
These projects, to be produced in 2027, span topics such as social isolation, long-term care, the accessibility of health care, and how digital transformation is reshaping the experience of aging in America.
The program is supported by funding from Silver Century Foundation, The Commonwealth Fund, The John A. Hartford Foundation, National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation (NIHCM), Health Foundation for Western & Central New York, and the Aging and Gerontology Programs at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Donations were provided by Betty F. Malks, MSW, and John Migliaccio, PhD, MEd, FGSA, to establish a fellowship honoring the memory of elder justice advocate Elizabeth Podnieks, EdD, founder of World Elder Abuse Awareness Day.
The new fellows:
Zoe Beketova (The Xylom)
Project: Cognitive consequences of growing old in isolation, exemplified by using America’s aging prison population.
Yvette Benavides (Texas Public Radio)
Project: “Reading Together: Book Clubs and Healthy Aging in San Antonio.”
Deborah Lynn Blumberg (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
Project: “A Population Getting Older, Faster,” focusing on issues and conflicts in caregiving, religious rituals, and end-of-life care.
Belinda Z. Burgos González (Public Health PR)
Project: “Aging Under Pressure: How Health, Infrastructure and Social Conditions Shape the Ability to Age Well in Puerto Rico.”
Tina Charisma (Roanoke Rambler)
Project: How digital transformation is changing everyday life across health care, government, transportation, and financial services.
Sharon Donovan (Kentucky Health News)
Project: “Home May Be Where the Heart Is — But at What Cost to Seniors and Their Family Caregivers?”
Max Erkiletian (SavingAdvice.com)
Project: “How Predictive Software Is Cutting Off Care in Medicare Advantage Plans — and How to Win Medicare Appeals”
Jordan Gass-Pooré (Inside Climate News)
Project: “The Impacts of Climate Change on America’s Aging Farmers and Ranchers”
Krys'tal Griffin (The News Journal/Delaware Online)
Project: “How Aging Adults Cope with the Long-Term Care Needs of Their Adult Children.”
Amy Carlson Gustafson (MinnPost)
Project: “The Art of Growing Older”: How Minnesota’s older adults are embracing arts and culture, and the health benefits that follow.
Alli Joseph (Salon.com)
Project: “Home Is the New Hospital: How America's Health Care System Quietly Shifted Its Most Essential Work to Families.”
Lorie Konish (CNBC)
Project: Older adults caught in the legal and legislative policy and estate-planning dilemmas that threaten their ability to hold on to their homes and preserve their families’ assets, especially in low-income and racially diverse communities.
Lara Nicholson (The Times-Picayune/The Advocate/NOLA.com)
Project: Challenges of senior housing and aging-in-place in Louisiana’s densely populated Jefferson Parish.
Dawn Reiss (Chicago Health/Caregiving Magazine)
Project: “Closing the Age Gap in Health Care: How Medicine Can Better Serve Older Adults”: a series on how medical institutions and researchers can make health care more accessible, responsive, and effective for America’s aging population.
Cari Shane (USA Today Network)
Project: Series on needed changes in U.S. culture, economics, and public health, including the medicalization of American society; our culture’s attitude about aging; and how to better organize our social and health systems for more widely affordable accessibility.
The participating journalists will convene during the GSA 2026 Annual Scientific Meeting — scheduled for November 4 to 7 in National Harbor, Maryland — where they will have access to the latest aging research and approximately 4,000 expert attendees. The fellowship will showcase research highlights from the meeting and other sources, and host discussions with veteran journalists on how to position aging stories in the current media environment.
GSA Director of Communications and Social Media Todd Kluss co-directs the program with independent age-beat journalist Liz Seegert, who is also the program coordinator for the fellowship’s media partner, the Journalists Network on Generations. Program co-founder and Journalists Network on Generations National Coordinator Paul Kleyman serves as senior advisor and editorial consultant.
Continuing fellowship grants also are being provided to allow several previous fellows to participate in the program and GSA’s meeting. A continuously updated list of more than 850 stories generated by the program’s alumni is available on GSA’s website.
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The Gerontological Society of America (GSA), founded in 1945, is the oldest and largest interdisciplinary organization focused on aging. It serves more than 6,000 members in over 50 countries. GSA’s vision, meaningful lives as we age, is supported by its mission to foster excellence, innovation, and collaboration to advance aging research, education, practice, and policy. GSA is home to the National Academy on an Aging Society (a nonpartisan public policy institute) and the National Center to Reframe Aging.
The Journalists Network on Generations, founded in 1993, is based in San Francisco. It links to over 1,000 journalists, authors, and producers on issues in aging, and publishes Generations Beat Online News (GBONews.org).