Marking 40 Years of the Academy
This year marks a defining moment for the National Academy of Social Insurance. As we celebrate 40 years of advancing understanding, collaboration, and solutions around social insurance, we do so at a time of profound change for the systems that millions of people rely on for economic security, care, and dignity across the lifespan.
Four decades after the Academy’s founding, the questions before us are as urgent as ever: how to ensure the continued strength of the social insurance programs that underpin our social contract; how to ensure they can meet the needs of current and future generations; and how to modernize our systems for a changing economy and an aging population. Underpinning debates over the future of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and more is the question, “What kind of society do we want to be?”
The Academy and its 1,400-strong Member community are answering that call. Through educating the public and policymakers and convening timely conversations; informing the debate with our new Speakers Bureaus and initiatives like our Social Security Rapid Response Collaborative; and new policy collaborations such as the Aging and Disability Health Policy Lab and the Disability Economic Policy Research Consortium, the Academy is proud to continue its legacy of social insurance leadership at this critical time.
At the same time, we are investing in the future by supporting emerging leaders through the Academy’s paid internship programs, cross-generational mentorship, our new Social Security Leadership Academy, and the recently launched Benefits Futures Studio, a major new collaboration with our friends at the Aspen Institute.
We invite you to join us as we mark this milestone and look ahead as we continue building a social insurance ecosystem grounded in the truth that we’re in this together.
As we mark 40 years, we are proud to announce our 40th Anniversary Campaign to celebrate our shared legacy and invest in the future of social insurance.
In love and solidarity,
Rebecca Vallas, CEO
National Academy of Social Insurance
40th Anniversary Gala & Robert M. Ball Award
As part of the Academy’s 40th Anniversary Campaign, we are excited to host a 40th Anniversary Gala on the evening of June 9, 2026, at District Winery (385 Water St SE, Washington, DC 20003).
The evening will bring together Members, partners, and leaders from across sectors to honor the Academy’s legacy and look ahead to what’s next. As part of the celebration, we will present the 2026 Robert M. Ball Award and the Frances Perkins Next Generation Award.
Meet the 2026 Robert M. Ball Awardees
Ai-jen Poo
Ai-jen Poo is an organizer and advocate who has built a movement to change the way our country values and supports caregiving and care work. She is the President of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, President of Care in Action, and the Executive Director of Caring Across Generations.
Poo began her career organizing domestic workers in New York City. She helped create Domestic Workers United, a coalition of nannies, house cleaners, and home care workers that was instrumental in winning the New York Domestic Worker Bill of Rights (2010), the first law in the US to guarantee basic protections for domestic workers.
In 2007, Poo co-founded the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) alongside domestic worker leaders from across the country. Under Poo’s leadership, NDWA grew into an alliance of 70 local organizations and a community of over 400,000 workers and won domestic worker bills of rights in 13 states, two cities, and the District of Columbia.
In 2011, Poo launched Caring Across Generations, a national organization driving change in our culture and policy to elevate and support caregiving at every stage of life. Caring Across has led the charge for authentic representation of care in film and television, helped secure care investments in states across the country, and helped enact the most sweeping executive order on care in history.
Lex Frieden
Lex Frieden is widely regarded as a chief architect of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and a founder and leader of the independent living movement in the United States. An educator, researcher, and lifelong disability rights activist, Frieden has spent decades ensuring that people with disabilities can participate fully in American life — work that remains as vital today as ever.
Frieden served as Executive Director of the National Council on Disability (NCD) in the mid-1980s, an independent federal agency charged with making recommendations on disability policy issues to the President and Congress. In this role, he oversaw the writing of the first drafts of what was to become the ADA. President George H.W. Bush signed the ADA into law on July 26, 1990.
Mr. Frieden, a quadriplegic due to spinal cord injury, has been involved in the organization of several groups of disabled individuals including the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities, the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities, and the Houston Coalition for Barrier Free Living. He is past Chairman of the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD).
