About Angela
I create transformative and meaningful products, programs, and interactions with my community that impact the way they experience and contribute to the world.
PMP, MSPH, EIT, RYT-500, Rescue Diver
NYTimes and Smithsonian recognized experienced engineer, designer, community developer and public health worker with a demonstrated history of working in the global community. I'm interested in working in innovation, operations, and design of programs that strive to make the world a better place.
My priorities are humans and the human condition, as well as taking care of our mother earth and the millions of inhabitants that make up our ecosystem. I believe in the power of healthy relationships, education, and that fostering communities, locally and globally, can change the face of our world.
Take a look at my portfolio below to see all that I've been involved with!
As a life-long learner, I'm always eager to jump into something new. I'm actively looking for new opportunities (learning or working!) and connections at the intersection of engineering, tech, leadership, social enterprise, climate change, and community building.
Available for Consulting Projects: With extensive experience and a passion for delivering exceptional results, I'm open to engaging in new consulting projects. Whether you need strategic insights, expert analysis, or hands-on guidance, I'm here to provide solutions that meet your needs. Feel free to contact me to discuss more!
Selected Projects
HOPE: Humans of Project Earth
I've always felt the term "humanitarian" was reserved for those on the front lines of crises. But then I realized, every act of helping one another, no matter how small, is an act of humanitarianism. During my work in climate change, I discovered amazing communities that inspired me. Yet, I found a gap in aid-focused groups. While there were platforms for professionals or organizations, there was a need for something open, free, and accessible to people looking to make a difference, from the ground up. That's why I've created HOPE: Humans of Project Earth, a collective of compassionate individuals aiming to inspire and support each other. Together, we share resources, ideas, and foster a community that makes positive change accessible to everyone.
Seeds of Success: Planting Financial Wellness
Carnegie Mellon University hosted a Data Analytics Day and IronViz competition in July of 2023 to encourage staff to use more data for student success. My team and I developed, created, and presented "Planting Seeds of Success: The Role of Financial Wellness" dashboard and won first place in this inaugural competition.
We used powerBI and created the data visualizations, data analytics, and story from scratch.
Folia Water
I worked with pAge Drinking Paper as a microbiologist evaluating the water purification capabilities of The Drinkable Book, a low-cost water filter that also educated the user. Then, I became one of the first hires of the new start-up Folia Water, as a product engineer and interaction designer developing iterative human-centered designs for different countries and cultural contexts, scaling the innovation. I ran pilot field studies to gather consumer insights about the viability, feasibility, and desirability of the filtration devices and developed business strategies and models in resource limited settings. Learn more and view my selected works here.
In addition, I worked on creating educational materials that were printed in food-grade safe ink on the silver nanoparticle paper that was cleaning the water in order to facilitate education around water sanitation and hygiene.
The Mindfulness Room
In 2012, I proposed, researched, designed, built and managed an innovative space for resiliency and rejuvenation at Carnegie Mellon called The Mindfulness Room. Grounded in improving mental health and wellness of students, The Mindfulness Room offers students, faculty, and staff opportunities to learn and practice wellness strategies such as engaging with therapy animals, music spas, therapeutic letter-writing campaigns, and wellness retreats. Using data-driven research, monitoring, and evaluation, I built and implemented a protocol to continually adapt and improve The Mindfulness Room initiative, which now exists in multiple colleges, high schools, and hospitals globally. Learn more.
S.Y.STEM Coalition
I worked with S.Y.STEM Coalition, CMU's C.S. Academy, and The Nyadire Connection to strategically develop a sustainable computer science curriculum, fundraise and write grants, train teachers, and create STEM workshops such as year-long robotics camps and coding clubs in Nyadire, Zimbabwe. I work with partners to give interested students enough training in computer science that they can either pursue higher education in the field or secure a remote job with a software company anywhere in the world.
Learn more about S.Y.STEM Coalition here.
Dragon Boat Trolley
I am a proud member of a Breast Cancer Survivor and Supporter Dragon Boat team. One of the challenges we faced during COVID-19 is the boat capacity dropping from 22 people down to 12 due to social distancing. The boat is 600lbs and with 12 women, some whom are actively going through chemotherapy, we could not lift the boat. I worked with local engineers and builders to figure out a new, innovative way to lift up the boat and put it into the water so the team could paddle on.
Outbreak Investigation
In the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, I designed an innovative Outbreak Investigation for students to help simulate what steps epidemiologists and responders need to take, including a contact tracing game. This was implemented in classes in high school and college, as well used for NYC Dept of Health's Take your child to work day.
For more information, find materials here.
Heal The World Yoga
I'm an inspiring and healing 500-RYT yoga innovator, providing safe and welcoming environment for all. I empower people to find strength to explore community, confidence, and connection to their practice. I'm a compassionate and caring, continual learner that creates a community in my classes. I offer donation-based yoga classes for a different cause every month, raising over $10,520 to date, playing harmonium and kirtan as well.
Paws to Relax
After noticing that students at Carnegie Mellon were unlikely to take the time out of their day to practice different wellness strategies, I fought for a new way to alleviate stress culture. I changed animal policies on campus, partnered with a local animal shelter and licensed therapy animal organization to host therapy animal training, and trained faculty and staff dogs to come on campus to bring stress relief and increase student-staff/faculty relationships. Over 500 students came to twice-weekly therapy animal sessions.
Cultural Cooking Classes
I made great strides towards advancing my commitment to intercultural competency, global learning, and working hands-on with the local community by cultivating cultural cooking classes based on environmental challenges for low-income middle-school students at the Living Classrooms Foundation. This program offered an opportunity to learn about both local and global challenges, helped develop hands-on cooking skills, championed a deeper sense of global citizenship, and provided nutritional meals multiple times a week.
Contact me to get a copy of the educational cookbook.
Integrating Drones into Humanitarian Emergencies
My master's thesis at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health was based on the idea that drones could be used throughout an entire lifecycle of a disaster, from mapping, monitoring, and planning disaster risk reduction strategies in the mitigation and preparation phases, to search and rescue and assessment in the response and recovery phase. The research focused largely on cultural impact and how to best integrate the drones before a disaster to ensure the most effective and efficient response on a local responder level with capacity building.
Contact me to read a copy of it!
Low-cost, transfemoral prosthetic foot
As part of my bachelor's capstone project, my team engineered a low-cost, high durability, and natural gait cycle transfemoral prosthetic foot for developing countries made out of cheap but strong materials that could be found locally and replaced easily for height gain or wear: PVC pipes and tires.
COVID-19 Fabric Masks
In the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, I sewed over 1,000 facemasks and N-95 covers for essential workers in Pittsburgh when we could not get surgical or N-95 masks. I worked with a community of sewers to get the masks to custodial staff, the incarcerated, hospitals, and educators.
Animal Rescue in Doha, Qatar
In many Middle Eastern cultures such as Qatar, animals are deemed forbidden and therefore neglected or abused. In addition, the building of the World Cup stadiums caused many animals to come in from the desert, losing their previous homes.
With no good TNR options, I work with a wonderful group of expats rescuing and fostering dogs in Doha and get them adopted to new families in US, Canada, and Qatar. I've successfully saved 32 wonderful pups since 2020.
Kitchen Safety for Senior Citizens
There are many kitchen complications and hazards in the everyday lives of senior citizens. Taking the community's physiological conditions into consideration, my team worked with Quality of Life Technology to produce a notification device to increase awareness in the kitchen where hazards are present for senior citizens. Using thermochromic ink, we created silicon adhesive stickers to attach to pots, pans, and dishware to indicate if the item was still dangerously hot.
Looking Glass Hackathon in Rwanda
I worked with Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village in Rwanda on creating a collaboration with CMU for a cloud-based Integrated Student Information System that would capture a complete student profile containing recruitment, formal education, informal education, and alumni information for all of the students.
Additionally, I planed a Hackathon using Looking Glass to teach the students the basics of programming as well as creating a curriculum for typing classes for students, faculty, and staff in the village.