When the Expert Becomes the Subject: Gerontologists Reflecting on Their Own Ageing Experience The Older Members Group (OMG) of The Australian Association of Gerontology (AAG) is a self-selecting, active advisory network of older members and represents a highly skilled and deeply experienced cohort of gerontologists with diverse discipline and practice boundaries whose expertise in ageing, coupled with professional and lived experience, offers significant value to the AAG community and the global movement to reimagine ageing. Gerontologists occupy a uniquely reflexive position in academic inquiry in that they dedicate careers to understanding ageing, yet, until they themselves grow older, they often do so from a position of relative experiential distance. This think tank, convened through the OMG, creates a rare and deliberately intimate space for older gerontologists to turn their analytical gaze inward and to reflect on “What does my own ageing feel like, and how does it challenge, confirm, or complicate what I have spent a lifetime studying?” and provide insider accounts which have the capacity to offer embodied, reflective testimony of the lived experience. It will attempt to build a body of reflection and testimony around the following guiding questions; • What has your own ageing taught the field that your research or area of study could not? • What would you do differently — as a researcher, an educator, a clinician or advocate knowing what you know now? • What do younger gerontologists need to understand that only time and living can reveal? • What does first person ageing reveal that third person research may obscure? Underpinning these questions is a deeper level of inquiry: that is do gerontological expertise and lived experience converge in ways that enrich one another — or do they produce new tensions, blind spots, and surprises? And critically, what does this mean for the next generation of gerontologists? Proposed Outputs/ Outcome of the think tank • A think tank report summarising key themes, discussion points, and implications for the future • An edited special issue or collection of papers, narratives, social commentary to be shared with the wider AAG network on “ Gerontologists reflections of their own Ageing” • To generate insights that may enrich gerontological theory, research methodology, and professional training for future gerontologists • Expanding and enhancing the OMG network Format of think tank (120 mins) Welcoming and framing (by Convenor) 4 invited discussants offer personalised reflections • personal narratives of ageing in dialogue with their professional knowledge and areas of study. A summary of invited written submissions from OMG members (unable to attend the think tank) will be summarised around the subject areas of • Identity and continuity • Ageism • Retirement Purpose and productivity • The ageing process • Care dependency and vulnerability • Mortality and temporality Open facilitated discussion and refection and engagement around the four guiding questions Conclusion • Shares – major points from discussion • Outlines the path for the future • Invites ongoing participation and develops a timeline for that