Throughout her career, Joyce Senior Angulo, PhD, PMP, has integrated her passions into her professional endeavors. Since 2023, when she founded Dr. J. Senior Consulting LLC, where she serves as a bilingual consultant, she has consistently worked with local and national nonprofit organizations and businesses that she supports through cultural competence consulting and translation services for their online and printed content.
Alongside this role, Dr. Senior Angulo has been a program manager at Oregon State University since 2016, acting as the coordinator for the state’s Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program, better known as EFNEP. In addition, she is one of the program coordinators on the state’s leadership team for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – Education, called SNAP-Ed. In 2021, Dr. Senior Angulo co-founded the 501(c)(3) nonprofit My Hair My Health PDX, where she is the deputy director. The organization’s mission is to create safe spaces of healing and celebration for Black women and their families that inspire them to live their best lives through events, classes, workshops, resources, and networking opportunities. Throughout her life, Dr. Senior Angulo has been guided by her core values of love, service, well-being, and growth. She works every day to build a positive legacy and notes that her actions are constantly informed by the questions “How can I become a good ancestor?” and “What am I leaving behind?”
Dr. Senior Angulo has always emphasized education and professional development and considers them the key contributors to her success. In 2009, she earned a bachelor’s degree in human nutrition from the Universidad de Costa Rica, after which she obtained a licentiate diploma in the same subject from the institution in 2010. Following these achievements, she continued her academic journey at Clemson University and graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy in food technology (nutrition education) in 2015. While pursuing her doctorate, Dr. Senior Angulo worked at Clemson University as a graduate teaching assistant from 2011 to 2015 and served as an international student ambassador from 2014 to 2015. Alongside her formal degrees, she is a certified project management professional through the Project Management Institute, a credential she earned in 2022.
Outside of her primary professional roles, Dr. Senior Angulo became a Zumba instructor with Zumba Fitness LLC in 2013 and has held her license to teach the globally popular dance exercise since then. She has also volunteered her free time by offering pro bono consulting services and by serving as a board member of local nonprofits for more than five years. Looking forward, she hopes to see her own nonprofit organization, My Hair My Health PDX, flourish and achieve financial self-sustainability. Alongside her co-founder and nonprofit team, Dr. Senior Angulo is working to secure long-term funding to ensure the organization’s longevity and realize her vision of having a positive, lasting impact on her community.
Dr. Senior Angulo expresses deep gratitude for her parents, who were pivotal in shaping and supporting her career path. Her father, a professor emeritus at the University of Costa Rica, instilled the values of discipline, ambition, and the pursuit of academic and professional excellence. Her mother, who is Colombian, passed along a passion for cooking and nurtured her lifelong love of food, eventually influencing her decision to pursue a career in nutrition. Dr. Senior Angulo also found inspiration in her mother’s courageous decision to leave her home country and build a new life in Costa Rica. Following in her mother’s footsteps, she embarked on her own journey abroad, leaving Costa Rica to pursue postgraduate studies in the United States.
Dr. Senior Angulo highlights the significance of “aligning your life with your core values.” While she deeply values her career, she places an even higher priority on spending meaningful time with her family and loved ones. Away from work, she enjoys the beach, dancing, reading books, watching documentaries, and singing karaoke. She even won a karaoke competition, winning a $100 prize for her vocal performance.