Karen Angel lives Humboldt County on the northern coast of California. It is the home of the world’s tallest trees, Coast Redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens).

She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science with an emphasis on political philosophy and constitutional law from Chico State University and did graduate studies at the University of California at Davis in Political Science – Environmental Public Policy.

While at U.C. Davis, she was Project Director for “Action Alternative for Community Change,” a program which instructed participating groups in change agent methodology. She was also the California co-consultant for the Model Child Abuse Reporting Law, Juvenile Justice Standards Project of the Institute of Judicial Administration, Inc. Karen and co-consultant U.C. Davis School of Law Professor Gary Goodpaster published “Child Abuse and the Law – The California System” in the Hastings Law Journal, and in Reporting Child Abuse and Neglect: Guidelines for Legislation, Sussman and Cohen, 1975.

After moving to Humboldt County in 1978, Karen became an avid long-distance runner. She holds the women’s record for the 40-mile race from Arcata to Willow Creek which starts at 200 feet elevation and passes through canyons with elevation gains and losses up to 2870 feet. She received a gold medal when she finished 48th overall in the New York City Marathon Women’s Division in 1987. She took first place in the women’s division in regional California races ranging in distance from 1 mile to the 26.2-mile marathon and was the third woman runner to be inducted into the Six Rivers Running Hall of Fame based on her marathon and ultramarathon race performances.

Her professional life has been dedicated to working for not-for-profit corporations. She was Executive Director of the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges, based in Sacramento, California, prior to moving to Humboldt County in 1978. In 1979, she co-founded Vector Health Programs, Inc., which provided medical rehabilitation to all regardless of their ability to pay. She served as Chief Executive Officer until 1995 when she moved to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea for two years. There, she was active in cultural life serving as acting president of the Papua New Guinea Orchid Society and participating with the Port Moresby Road Runners. At age fifty she won the Port Morseby Half Marathon Women’s Division and finished in first place overall in the Women’s Race Circuit.

When she returned to the United States, she served as the Executive Director for the Humboldt Botanical Gardens Foundation (1998-2007) and received her Master Gardener Certificate from the University of California, Davis, Class of 2002. A Museum Studies class at Humboldt State University taught by Professor Sanderson Morgan aided in her horticultural work for the botanical garden and archival work for the Jimmie Angel Historical Project. Her interest in the history of horticulture and Sir Joseph Banks led her to enlist as a voyage crew member on Captain James Cook’s historic replica tall ship HMS Endeavor in USA, Canadian, and New Zealand waters.

Karen presented her paper titled “The Truth about Jimmie Angel and Angel Falls,” at the first International & Interdisciplinary Alexander von Humboldt Conference in 2001, at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. She presented additional research papers about Jimmie Angel and exploration at the Alexander von Humboldt Conferences in Veracruz, Mexico in 2005, and Berlin, Germany in 2009.

She is especially grateful to the American Museum of Natural History’s Research Associate Mary LeCroy in the Department of Ornithology in the years 2002, 2003, and 2012, and Susan Bell in the Department of Paleontology in 2003 for their assistance with her Venezuela exploration research. In 2003, Dr. Joe Cain, historian of science at University College London, invited her to the American Philosophical Society Library in Philadelphia, PA, where she investigated the archive of evolutionary paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson. Simpson’s 1939 work with the Indigenous People of the Gran Sabana titled Los Indios Kamarakotos was a detour from his usual research.

Karen has served as a director on many not-for-profit organizations and agency boards. She is especially interested in the arts and the social-economic well-being of every person.

In 1998, she traveled to China to see the fabled Three Gorges of the Yangtze River on a river voyage from Chongqing to Wuhan before the impounded waters submerged more than two thousand years of history. While there, she met Chinese artist and poet Deng Shaóyi and learned of his great love for the Three Gorges and its history. When she returned home, she presented to the Humboldt Arts Council her proposal to host Deng Shaóyi as an artist in residence with a major exhibition of his work in the Morris Graves Museum of Art. With Karen chairing the funding & steering committee, Deng Shaoyi was an artist in residence for two months in 2000.

In addition to China, Karen has travelled extensively internationally with the Gran Sabana of southeastern Venezuela her favorite destination. In addition to founding the Jimmie Angel Historical Project in 1996, she is a founding board member of Angel Conservation which is dedicated to creating, developing, documenting, supporting and working with programs and projects that conserve and preserve the cultures of indigenous peoples, native flora and fauna species, and the natural environments that gave them life. To date, the focus of Angel Conservation has been projects with the Pemón of Kamarata Valley, Canaima National Park where Angel Falls is located.

Karen curates the Jimmie Angel Historical Project Archive and has authored research papers about him and his era of aviation and exploration in addition to publishing in various books, magazines, and newspapers. She has also assisted filmmakers, and other authors with their books, newspaper, and magazine articles about Jimmie Angel. Her book titled Angel’s Flight – The Life of Jimmie Angel – American Aviator-Explorer – Discoverer of Angel Falls, was published in 2019.