The co-director of the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston received the McKnight’s Pinnacle Award on March 7 in Chicago.
Robyn Stone, senior vice president of research at LeadingAge and co-director of the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston, was honored on March 7 with a McKnight’s Pinnacle Award, which recognizes veterans in the field of aging services who are “setting the standards, driving change, providing guidance, and inspiring us all.”
LTSS Center Co-Director Robyn Stone and Daniel Reingold, CEO/President of RiverSpring Living, a LeadingAge member in New York, received McKnight’s Pinnacle Awards on March 7 in Chicago.
Professionals with at least 20 years of experience in the field of aging services, who continue to strive for success, are eligible to receive the Pinnacle Award. Awardees were honored during an in-person celebration at the Ivy Room in Chicago.
Thirty-one veterans in the field of aging services received 2023 Pinnacle Awards in six categories. Eleven of the nominees are affiliated with LeadingAge.
Stone was recognized as an “Industry Ally.”
“This is a very significant honor for me to be recognized by the sector to which I have given my entire career,” says Stone. “While I have received professional honors in the past related to my research and policy work, to be honored as an ally of the organizations that deliver services and supports to older adults every day is the NorthStar of my career. It means that I have truly made a difference.”
Robyn Stone joined LeadingAge in 1999 to establish the Institute for the Future of Aging Services, now the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston. Her widely published work addresses long-term care policy and quality, chronic care for people with disabilities, the aging services workforce, affordable senior housing, and family caregiving. Stone is a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and the National Academy of Social Insurance and was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2014.
Stone was a political appointee in the Clinton Administration, serving in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as deputy assistant secretary for disability, aging, and long-term care policy. She also served as assistant secretary for aging.
McKnight’s name Stone a Women of Distinction Hall of Honor Honoree in 2021 and one of 40 Notable Newsmakers in 2020. She also received the Sterling Friendship Award from the Friendship Senior Options Foundation in 2018, the Next Avenue Influencers in Aging Award in 2017, the Maxwell A. Pollack Award for Productive Aging from the Gerontological Society of America in 2016, and the M. Powell Lawton Quality of Life Award from the Philadelphia Corporation for Aging, also in 2016.
Stone earned an MA in public policy from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, and a DrPH from the University of California Berkeley.
“The most valuable less I’ve learned while working the field of aging services is the fact that caring for the elderly is not a fleeting phenomenon—it is here to stay for generations to come,” says Stone. She advises others in the field of aging to “have patience and fortitude as you work on improving the system, particularly in the United States. We move incrementally and transformation takes a very long time.”