In March, Angélica Valdés Valderrama joined Ciencia Puerto Rico as our new Civic Science Fellow, part of the 2024-2025 cohort of the Civic Science Fellows program, created and supported by Rita Allen Foundation. Angélica, who is part of our Yale Ciencia Academy family (cohort 2022-23), will work with the Public Engagement with Science Unit, leading the evaluation of Laboratorio de Ciencia Comunitaria (CienciaCoLab) and other projects. Welcome to our team, Angélica!

Learn more about her:

Angélica Valdés Valderrama is a social scientist trained in political science, economics, public health nutrition, and food policy. She earned a bachelor's degree in economics and another in political science from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez campus. She completed a master's degree in agricultural economics at the same institution. There, she led a study of the effects of the Puerto Rico Nutrition Assistance Program on employment and participated in another study about barriers to and facilitators for healthy eating among early adolescents in Puerto Rico. She is currently a doctoral candidate at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, specializing in the integration and evaluation of equity in nutrition programs. Her current research focuses on assessing innovations and emerging technologies for federal nutrition programs (SNAP and WIC) and food retail options through a health equity lens. In addition, she collaborates with the ChildObesity180 research team at Tufts University. Some awards she has received include the Tufts-USDA Fellowship in Childhood Obesity Prevention (2019-23) and a HER-NOPREN research funding grant entitled "Healthy Food Retail Early Career Scholar Award" (2021-22).

This Borinqueña is passionate about centering equity in food systems and nutrition and hopes to continue engaging in decolonial, anti-racist, and community-centered research and advocacy. She also enjoys taking care of her plants, trying new foods, and adventuring outdoors.