Joan Alker, Executive Director and a cofounder of the Georgetown University Center for
Children and Families (CCF) received the Grantmakers In Health’s 2024 Andy Hyman Award. The
award pays tribute grantees who embody a commitment to principled action, passionate
leadership to advance social change, and dedication to making progress in policy and practice
despite challenging political environments.

Ms. Alker was nominated by Katherine Beckmann of The David and Lucile Packard Foundation,
with support from Martha Davis of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
For 25 years, Ms. Alker has dedicated her career to addressing issues that affect low- and
moderate-income children and families in America. Ms. Alker co-founded CFF in 2005 as a
nonpartisan policy and research center with a mission to expand and improve high-quality,
affordable health coverage for those families. She has authored numerous reports and studies
focused on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, including recent reports
examining the role of Medicaid in rural areas, the nation’s progress on covering children,
Medicaid waivers, premium assistance, and a multiyear study on Florida’s Medicaid program.
In addition to her leadership role at CCF, Ms. Alker is a research professor at the Georgetown
University McCourt School of Public Policy as well as a frequent public speaker and media
commentator.

In selecting Ms. Alker, this year’s committee members lauded her work to protect millions of
eligible people at risk of losing Medicaid at the end of the national public health emergency.
Ms. Alker has worked to educate a broad coalition of stakeholders, equip them with tools
needed to help people retain Medicaid enrollment, and push for policy changes when problems
arise. Due in large part to the work by Ms. Alker and her team at CCF, a major issue with state
automated renewal systems was uncovered after millions of likely eligible people, mainly
children, lost coverage for procedural reasons. Ms. Alker continues to push states to reinstate
coverage for those impacted, remove unnecessary administrative barriers and prevent more
people from erroneously losing their health coverage.

In accepting the award, Ms Alker thanked her CCF colleagues and the state network of child
health advocates across the country that put her center’s research and policy recommendations
into action. She told the audience: “They are the story behind my story.”