About Anupa

Anupa, a brown woman with shoulder length hair is wearing a blue dress and pearls. She is smiling at the camera.

Anupa Iyer Geevarghese is a civil rights attorney, disability rights advocate, and policy strategist with over two decades of experience advancing equity, inclusion, and accessibility across sectors.

During the Biden–Harris administration, she was appointed to senior roles at the U.S. Department of Labor, serving as Deputy Director of Policy at the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) and as Chief of Staff at the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP). In these roles, she led national efforts to promote workplace mental health, expand disability inclusion, and enforce civil rights in federal contracting. She previously spent over seven years at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), where she helped shape government-wide disability and EEO policy.

Anupa began her career organizing home care and nursing home workers with SEIU, and later worked in the staffing industry—giving her firsthand insight into labor rights, recruitment systems, and frontline employment challenges. That foundation continues to inform her holistic approach to workplace equity and systemic change.

Anupa brings lived experience with recovery in the mental health system. That experience drives her commitment to transforming systems—through policy, advocacy, and community engagement—to center the voices and rights of people with disabilities.

As the founder of Welcoming Workplaces, Anupa provides tailored solutions to help organizations build accessible and welcoming policies and cultures.

She holds a B.A. in Political Science from UCLA and a J.D. from Seattle University School of Law.

In the Media

“States can serve as a Model Employer to Engage the Disability Workforce”

— Women in Government

“I think, unfortunately, there are still perceptions about the knowledge, skill and abilities of people with disabilities,” she said. “As a whole, we’re still, as a community, still perceived as people who can’t do their jobs, are unqualified, who are uneducated and are incapable … we thought we had combated it, but we are still fighting that fight.”

—Associated Press

“Instead of expanding opportunities for people with disabilities, we’re rescinding them.”

— Mother Jones