UN Stakeholder Group on Aging, Activist, Author, ‘This Chair Rocks’

Author and activist Ashton Applewhite has been recognized by the New York Times, the New Yorker, National Public Radio, and the American Society on Aging as an expert on ageism. She blogs at This Chair Rocks, speaks widely, has written for Harper’s, the Guardian, and the New York Times, and is the voice of Yo, Is This Ageist? She has been named as a Fellow by the Knight Foundation, the New York Times, Yale Law School, and the Royal Society for the Arts. In 2015 she was included in Salt magazine’s list of 100 Inspiring Women—along with Arundhati Roy, Rigoberta Menchu, Germaine Greer, Naomi Klein, Pussy Riot, and other remarkable activists—who are committed to social change. In 2016, she joined the PBS site Next Avenue’s annual list of 50 Influencers in Aging as their Influencer of the Year. The author of This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism, Ashton is a leading spokesperson for a movement to mobilize against discrimination on the basis of age.