As Chief of Staff for the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP), Anupa Iyer Geevarghese collaborates closely with ODEP’s Assistant Secretary and other U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) leaders to identify and implement strategies for increasing the number and quality of employment opportunities for people with disabilities.
In so doing, Iyer Geevarghese draws on years of legal experience in both the public and nonprofit sectors. She came to DOL from the U.S. Department of Defense, where she served as a subject matter expert and Senior Disability Policy Advisor for diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) initiatives. Prior to that, she worked for seven years at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Office of Federal Operations (OFO), where she was instrumental in implementing updates strengthening Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Before joining EEOC’s OFO, Iyer Geevarghese was a Confidential Assistant to EEOC Commissioner Chai Feldblum, a position through which she played a leading role in the agency’s “Curb Cuts to the Middle Class” initiative, an innovative federal cross-agency effort to increase employment and economic self-sufficiency for people with disabilities. Before beginning federal service, she worked for various non-profit advocacy organizations, among them the Mental Disability Advocacy Center, and served as a Union Organizer for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
Iyer Geevarghese holds a J.D. from Seattle University School of Law and B.A. in Political Science from the University of California Los Angeles.
