From Grit to Growth

A Journey Through Engineering, Entrepreneurship, and Impact

These are highlights from the Green Building Matters podcast.

To watch the full interview, click here!

In this deeply personal and inspiring highlight, Angela shares her incredible journey from a small town in Georgia to the forefront of biomedical innovation. Moving from the North to the South as a child, Angela reflects on how her upbringing shaped her candid communication style, her deep empathy for others, and her relentless drive to make a difference.

From navigating a difficult childhood and raising a special needs daughter, to earning a degree in biomedical engineering from Georgia Tech as a single mom in her late 20s, Angela’s story is one of resilience, grit, and purpose. She takes us behind the scenes of her senior design project that challenged the norms of academia and laid the foundation for interdisciplinary innovation.

Angela also opens up about her professional path — from her early days at Medtronic, to being employee #4 at Florence Healthcare, to eventually fulfilling a lifelong dream of building medical technology in Silicon Valley. But it was her return to Georgia, driven by the passion and tenacity she saw in Atlanta’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, that sparked her mission to elevate Southern innovation.

Now leading the Biolocity program at Georgia Tech and Emory, Angela is investing in the next generation of life science startups — helping others do exactly what she’s done: turn hardship into innovation, and passion into impact.

Topics Covered:

• The cultural blend of Northern candor and Southern grace
• Navigating adversity as a young mother and student
• The power of interdisciplinary collaboration in engineering
• Startup life from Series A to Series C
• Lessons from Silicon Valley vs. Georgia’s tech ecosystem
• How customer experience fuels business growth
• Empowering the next generation of innovators through Biolocity

Whether you’re an aspiring founder, engineer, or leader in any field, this episode is a powerful reminder of what’s possible when you lead with purpose and never stop learning.

Watch the full highlight reel here:

Want to see more of Angela in action? Check out other interviews here!