Vinita Jethwani

As a 17-year resident and current council member in Metuchen, Vinita and her family (husband Jonathan and 15-year-old daughter Sanya) are proud to call this borough their home. In her role on the council, she serves as a liaison to the Metuchen Public Library, the Metuchen History Advisory Committee, the volunteer Emergency Medical Service (EMS), and the Finance Committee.

For almost 30 years, advancing equity and access has been a common theme in Vinita’s professional and volunteer life, and she has been committed to improving institutions and services. In her role as a council member, she strives to ensure that all residents – including our new neighbors – have opportunities to engage with the borough.

Vinita most recently worked at the Council of State Governments Justice Center, a national, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to improve public safety and strengthen communities. Vinita has also worked at Mathematica Policy Research and has served as a Research Operations Director at the Guttmacher Institute, an organization committed to sexual and reproductive health and rights. When working at the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), she collaborated with law enforcement leadership to lead a multi-year initiative addressing crimes of violence against women.

She has extensive experience managing grants and executing projects while ensuring budgetary and fiscal compliance and accountability. As a certified Project Management Professional, Vinita is known to ask critical questions before moving ahead with any endeavor. That expertise and diligence is an essential part of what Vinita brings to her role on the Metuchen Council.

Vinita has always prioritized volunteering her time and skills in the community. Currently, she is a volunteer with Share My Meals, which addresses food insecurity and environmental impacts of food waste by recovering surplus meals from corporate cafeterias, schools and hospitals. In that capacity, she has supported Metuchen’s First Presbyterian Church Food Pantry. Vinita has also served as a board member of Planned Parenthood of Northern, Central and Southern New Jersey (PPNCSNJ), which provides essential reproductive and health care services across the state. She served on the Board of Trustees for Middlesex College, which is committed to ensuring an affordable and quality educational pathway for a diverse student body. In 2022, Vinita was appointed to the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Commission, established by former NJ Governor Phil Murphy to address challenges faced by the AAPI community in accessing resources in the state. Her past volunteer roles include serving as a board member of Manavi, a New Jersey-based nonprofit organization providing services and support to South Asian victims of gender-based violence.

Vinita received her BA from Douglass College at Rutgers University and her Masters’ degree from the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.

Vinita is honored to be a member of the Borough Council and she is excited to team up with her running mate Chuck Lopez to ensure that Metuchen is an even better place to live, work and raise a family.