Bama Athreya

Bama Athreya serves as the Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Hub and the Inclusive Development Hub in USAID’s Bureau for Development, Democracy, and Innovation.

Ms. Athreya is an expert on international labor issues, gender and social inclusion, and business and human rights. From 2019 through 2021, she was an Economic Inequality Fellow at Open Society Foundations and Senior Advisor on Gender, Equity, and Inclusion to Laudes Foundation. From 2013 through 2019, she served as USAID’s Senior Specialist for Labor where she developed new programming to address labor rights, counter human trafficking, and promote women’s economic inclusion and was part of a working group to advance USAID’s approach to gender and social inclusion. She has developed and led multi-stakeholder initiatives with global corporations, and has worked and written extensively on labor and gender in U.S. trade policy. She is on the Board of Directors of Green America, Advisory Board for Worker Info Exchange, affiliated as a Fellow with Just Jobs Network, and a regular contributor to Inequality.org. She also hosts a podcast on the future of work, The Gig. 

Ms. Athreya holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the University of Michigan, and a certificate in Strategic Management for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion from Georgetown University.