Patricia C. Vaughan

Patricia C. Vaughan is vice president and general counsel of the Population Council.

For more than 20 years, Vaughan has led the Council’s legal group as well as the regulatory and quality assurance work involved in the development and commercial licensing of the Council’s pharmaceutical drug products—used by more than 170 million women worldwide. She provides expertise to establish the Council’s subsidiary and affiliated organizations, including in India, Kenya, Belgium, South Africa, Tanzania, and Pakistan. Vaughan also oversees the Council’s global enterprise risk management program, as well as its Institutional Review Board, which is responsible for ensuring the ethical conduct of the Council’s research.

Vaughan is active in several international and domestic organizations that are engaged in health, education, and development initiatives. She serves as chair of the board of Population Council-Kenya, a Council affiliate, and the Nonprofit Risk Management Center, which provides education services to approximately 40,000 non-profit organizations. She is a director of Literacy Solutions NY, and Vennue Foundation, the first social enterprise committed to improving patient care in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) by strengthening pharmacy services. She is an advisor to the ICA Foundation, a collaboration between Bayer AG and the Council to increase access to the levonorgestrel releasing intrauterine system (LNG IUS) in LMICs She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Vaughan served as chair of the board of the African Population Health and Research Center, a premier research organization based in Nairobi, Kenya, and chair of Solutions for Innovative Policies, Programs and Technologies, NPC, Johannesburg, South Africa. She was as an adjunct lecturer at the State University of New York at Purchase.

Before joining the Council, Vaughan was in private practice in New York City.

Born in Jamaica, West Indies, Vaughan received her Juris Doctor from the Columbia University School of Law and her Bachelor of Arts in public and international affairs from Princeton University. She is admitted to practice law before the state and federal courts in New York and New Jersey. She also earned a business management certification from New York University’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies. In recognition of her experience and professional accomplishments, Vaughan has been named a Top 50 Attorney of New York of 2023 by Attorney Intel.