The Pride: Angelina Thomas ’15

Angelina Thomas is a graduate of the LMU College of Business Administration with a degree in marketing. To gain experience and identify her talents, she took advantage of internships and groups including the Entrepreneurship Society and Sorsum Corda. To launch this magazine section called The Pride, we outlined Thomas’ path from a Minnesota-based internship to her work today in product design with Meta in Menlo Park. 

Step 1

International Leadership Institute

Minneapolis, Minnesota

April 2012–2015

Thomas was an intern with an organization founded by her aunt, Judge LaJune Lange, to help communities in Kenya and Somalia gain access to quality health care. She worked on newsletters, event promotion and speaking engagements. “I was exposed for the first time to the idea that individual people can have a global impact. I learned the way to solve problems is to create opportunities in communities. My aunt had a big impact on me. She told me, ‘Where you start doesn’t matter, it’s where you’re going that matters.’”

Step 2

Management Leadership for Tomorrow

Washington, D.C.

June 2014–Aug. 2015

Thomas was selected to a leadership training program in Washington, D.C., while living in Minneapolis. She participated in business cases and conferences with leaders from major companies. “I was surrounded by people who inspired me.”

Step 3

Google — Interaction Designer

Mountain View, California

January 2018–May 2019

Thomas led user research, interaction design and product vision for machine-learning platforms. “I started doing interaction design work part-time and in doing so it opened the door for new opportunities. That experience allowed me to explore how to best apply my skills, validate my interest and also see how much impact I could have on the world.”

Step 4

Carnegie Mellon University Graduate School

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Degree in Human-Computer Interaction

2019–20

Thomas’ degree combined psychology, design, machine learning, computer science and user research. “It showed me the power of interdisciplinary study and practice.” Daniel Martin, at Google, was a reference for her.

Step 5

Meta — Product Designer

Menlo Park, California

November 2020-Present

Thomas’ work is aimed at empowering marginalized communities and promoting racial justice through Facebook’s social impact team. Her team aims to spearhead internal industry standards and best practices by making products more fair, equitable and inclusive. Thomas has learned she wants to use her product design skills to help marginalized communities where they interact with or are influenced by technology. “I want to lead product strategies for ‘moon-shot’ projects aimed at tackling some of the world’s intractable problems,” she says. 

The Pride is a new LMU Magazine department that delves into the story of an LMU alum’s career journey. Each career professional featured on these pages is a member of The Pride online network. Connect with them and other Lion career professionals at ThePride.lmu.edu.