Since 2017, the Alliance for Aging Research’s Talk NERDY to Me network has addressed the underrepresentation of older adult patients and family caregivers as stakeholders in research by helping network alumni connect with Patient-Centered Outcomes Research (PCOR) opportunities at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Department of Defense (DoD), the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the private sector, and in local comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER) projects. When researchers and clinicians engage with older adults who are living with major chronic illnesses, it opens a window into how real and perceived barriers impact access to effective interventions and services.