Rachel Vogelstein

The Clements Center Women and National Security Speaker series will feature distinguished foreign policy and national security experts.  With this series we hope to highlight a range of important policy issues including counterterrorism, Middle East political reform, nonproliferation, economic development, human rights, and other pressing topics.  This series will not only feature female practitioners of national security and foreign policy but also be part of a broader conservation about how the advancement of gender equality is a moral and strategic imperative of U.S. foreign policy. 

Rachel B. Vogelstein is a senior fellow and director of the Women and Foreign Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in Washington, DC. At CFR, Ms. Vogelstein’s research focuses on the relationship between women’s advancement and prosperity, stability, and security. She is also a professor of gender and U.S. foreign policy at Georgetown Law School.

From 2009 to 2012, Ms. Vogelstein was director of policy and senior advisor in the Office of Global Women’s Issues within the Office of the Secretary of State at the U.S. Department of State. Following her tenure at the State Department, she served as the director of Women and Girls Programs in the Office of Hillary Rodham Clinton at the Clinton Foundation, where she oversaw the development of the No Ceilings initiative and provided guidance on domestic and global women’s issues. 

Ms. Vogelstein is an attorney by training with expertise on gender equality. Prior to joining the State Department, Ms. Vogelstein was an advisor to then-Senator and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, serving as assistant counsel to Senator Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and as an advisor to her first U.S. Senate campaign. She also was senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center in Washington, DC, where she specialized in women’s health and reproductive rights. She has lectured widely on the rights of women and girls, including at the U.S. Congressional Women’s Caucus, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Foreign Service Institute, the World Bank, the Brookings Institution, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Harvard Law School.

Ms. Vogelstein graduated magna cum laude from Barnard College, Columbia University and cum laude from Georgetown Law School, where she was executive editor of the Georgetown Law Journal. Following law school, Ms. Vogelstein clerked for the Honorable Thomas L. Ambro on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. She is a recipient of the Secretary of State’s Superior Honor Award and a National Association of Women Lawyers Award.