Kehaulani Vaughn
Board Member
Kēhaulani Natsuko Vaughn is a visiting professor in Asian American Studies and the Assistant Director of the Asian American Resource Center at Pomona College. She is currently a doctoral candidate in Ethnic Studies at the University of California at Riverside. Her educational background includes a bachelor or arts in American Studies from Occidental College and master’s degrees from UCLA in higher Education and Asian American Studies.
Her current research explores Pacific Island Studies, Indigenous epistemologies, Indigenous education, and decolonial practices and pedagogies. She has taught numerous college courses including: Pacific Islander Education, Race and Ethnicity in the United States, Indigeneity in Hawai’i, Asian American Studies, Native American Studies and Research Methodology.
Before returning for her doctorate, Kēhaulani worked professionally at UCLA as an Academic Advisor for undergraduate and graduate students and also coordinated a federally-funded Student Support Services program. She has been involved with educational access, outreach, and retention over the past several years both professionally and voluntarily amongst underrepresented, first generation college students and families. She is a nationally recognized speaker and scholar on higher education and Pacific Islander education and consults for numerous organizations including the Gates Millennium Scholarship Fund, Asian Pacific American Scholarship Fund and OCA.
Her passion around higher educational access especially amongst Pacific Islanders and other Indigenous communities led her to become a co-founder and current board member of Empowering Pacific Islander Communities (EPIC). Working with others in EPIC, she developed and facilitated the EPIC Scholars program, which was a culturally relevant leadership development program that addressed the retention and persistence of Pacific Islander college students. Given the success of EPIC Scholars, EPIC was able to receive a grant for staff and programmatic funding that enabled the development of the Pacific Islander Leaders of Tomorrow (PILOT) program.