Angela L Hamilton loves her job as the Coordinator of Student Operated Services in Student Activities and Leadership Programs (SALP) at Portland State University (since 2013). She has been educating diverse learners for more than 30 years in the U.S. and Ecuador and has focused on cocurricular leadership development, student success, and teaching and learning for more than 10 years. In her current role, she advises/supervises more than 40 students leading student-operated services on campus--5th Avenue Cinema, Graphic Design Center, Littman+White Galleries, Portland State Programming Board, Portland State Professional Sound, and PSU Food Pantry. Her work and interests include student success and persistence, trauma-informed teaching and learning, connecting student employment to career-related outcomes, designing and facilitating leadership curriculum, and cultivating human-scale climate resilience and health. As a Portland State alumnus herself, she believes strongly in the role of student employment as a key factor in student success and lifelong alumni commitment.
Angela is a PhD Candidate in Leadership and Change at Antioch University, from where she also earned a second M.A. in Leadership and Change. She is a proud Portland State University alumnus with an M.A. in Leadership and Policy specializing in Leadership for Sustainability Education. She is currently finishing up her dissertation researching the role of trauma-informed college and university food pantries for cultivating student success.
She has co-founded two Portland-based nonprofits focused on sustainability education including the United Nations University's Greater Portland Regional Center of Expertise in Education for Sustainable Development. Prior to attending graduate school, Angela lived in Ecuador for four years teaching English and working in Ecotourism, and she worked more than six years as a Spanish-English interpreter certified in medical and legal interpretation. She grew up in a tiny rice farming community in Northern California and is a first-generation college student. In her free time, Angela tries to balance worrying about our climate future with enjoying time cooking, watching foreign film, and exploring the waterways of the Pacific Northwest with her partner and their dog.