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BRIEF BIO

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Hi! I’m Angélica, an environmental social scientist focused on the policies, practices, and infrastructures that support building long-term climate justice and energy equity. I have over a decade of experience designing, implementing, and evaluating a diverse range of research from wet-lab experiments and spatial computations to policy analyses and community organizing. 

 

Both my professional and personal work is guided by a responsibility to Borínken (also called Puerto Rico), the ancestral home of my father’s people; to my maternal and paternal grandmothers, whose labors and knowledges shape my own; and to future generations who will inherit what we sow.  As a prima de afuera, or Boricua who grew up outside the islands, I am deeply drawn to intergenerational and long-term climate adaptation and energy sustainability work that moves Black and Indigenous communities (particularly on small islands) beyond failing energy infrastructures and towards ethical climate solutions that center Black liberation + Indigenous sovereignty, and the health of all for many generations. ​

 

​Currently I am a late-stage PhD student at MSU where, in addition to coordinating a dissertation project I serve as an outreach coordinator for MSU-Extensions' renewable energy planning project R-STEP. I am also a member of MSU’s Indigenous Graduate Student Collective (IGSC) and the MSU Chapter of The Society for Advancing Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS).

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Most recently, I was awarded a 2024-2025 Smithsonian Institute Climate and Culture fellowship to support forthcoming dissertation work around de/anti-colonial climate adaptation strategies in the so-called US territories. 

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When not writing or buzzing between projects, you can find me fulfilling my most important role of mother, visiting waterways, or (on rare occasions) adding to my blog.

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Want to chat? Email me @ dejesu16@msu.edu.

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