Andrew J. Imparato, JD
Executive Director | Executive Team
Phone: 240-821-9370
Andrew Imparato has served as executive director of the Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD) since 2013. As a disability rights lawyer and policy professional with more than 25 years of experience in federal government and advocacy roles, Imparato has worked with bipartisan policymakers to advance disability policy in the areas of civil rights, workforce development, and disability benefits. Prior to coming to AUCD, he was senior counsel and disability policy director for Chairman Tom Harkin on the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Before that, he spent 11 years as President and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities, a national organization working to grow the political and economic power of the disability community. While in that role, he played a key role in negotiating the provisions of the ADA Amendments Act that restored civil rights protections to millions of Americans under the Americans with Disabilities Act in 2008. Imparato's perspective is informed by his personal experience with bipolar disorder and he self identifies as a person with a disability.
Since joining AUCD, a national network of over 100 university-based programs that conduct research, training and advocacy to improve the quality of life of children and adults with disabilities, Imparato has helped the organization more than double its budget, broaden the scope of its advocacy and expand its leadership capacity. In recent years, AUCD has connected in a deeper way with the broader disability and civil rights communities and with private sector partners like the Poses Family Foundation, the Ruderman Family Foundation, and JP Morgan Chase.
Imparato's work has been recognized by the Secretaries of Health and Human Services and Transportation, the US Junior Chamber of Commerce, the National Council on Independent Living, the National Association of the Deaf, and the Osteogenesis Imperfecta Foundation. He has testified nine times before Committees of the US Senate and House of Representatives and has been interviewed on a wide range of disability issues by national and international television, radio and print media. He cultivates grassroots activism on social media and is known for seeking out and mentoring diverse emerging leaders with disabilities. With almost 20,000 followers on Twitter and more than 17,000 connections on LinkedIn, Imparato has built one of the larger personal social media platforms in the disability advocacy community.
Imparato co-authored articles that have been published in the Stanford Law and Policy Review and the Milbank Quarterly, and wrote a chapter on the Supreme Court's disability rulings in The Rehnquist Court: Judicial Activism on the Right (Hill & Wang 2003). He has been an adviser on accessibility, recruiting and corporate social responsibility to Centene, Verizon, Walmart, Anthem, Microsoft, and other leading businesses. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, the National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Health Policy Research Scholars program, the Centene National Disability Advisory Council, the National Advisory Committee for Georgetown University's Community of Practice on Cultural and Linguistic Competence in Developmental Disabilities, and the Ruderman Family Foundation's International Advisory Council. Imparato graduated summa cum laude from Yale College and with distinction from Stanford Law School. Since 1994, he has lived in Baltimore with his wife, historian Elizabeth Nix, Ph.D. They have two sons, one a writer in Los Angeles and one a senior at Pomona College in Claremont, California. Imparato grew up in Los Angeles.
