Photo of Mariah Arral, she has blonde hair and blue eyes. She wears glasses that are gold on the bottom and black on the top. She has on a blue shirt that has flowers of different shades of blue red and pink on it.
Mariah is waring a white lab coat and has on purple gloves. She is pipetting something in a small tube.
Mariah is standing next to Pooja, an undergrad she mentored. They both have on safety glasses an lab coats. They are standing next to a chemical fume hood.

Mariah L. Arral is a sixth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). She is an NIH NRSA F31 Fellow and former NSF GRFP Fellow in Prof. Kathryn Whitehead’s group. Her work focuses on developing new materials for lipid nanoparticles and understanding the relationship between materials, delivery, and immunogenicity.

During her tenure in the Whitehead lab, Mariah has taken an active role in collaborating with her colleagues. She currently has six papers where she is an author, with several more submitted or in the pipeline. Mariah’s first author papers have not been published yet, but she hopes to have an update on those soon!

Mariah’s career goals include a post-doctoral position after her Ph.D. to expand her knowledge of drug delivery, biomaterials, and the immune system. She hopes to take the knowledge she gains from her Ph.D. and post-doctoral position to develop her own research program as a tenure-track professor.

In addition to her RNA work, Mariah engages in engineering education research. During her undergraduate studies, Mariah started a project to understand and develop strategies around mentoring for neurodivergent STEM students. Mariah also works on the accessibility and inclusion of disabled students in STEM education and research. She has a solo author paper titled “10 Tips to Make Your Course More Accessible and Inclusive to Disabled Students.” Mariah has been invited to give keynote presentations on her disability work, and in the fall of 2022, Mariah will be inducted into the University of New Hampshire Diversity Hall of Fame.

photo of the whitehead lab in 2018, Back: Kyle Cochran, Rose Doerfler, Namit Chaudhary, and Nick Lamson. Front: Mariah Arral, Kathy Fein, and Prof. Kathryn Whitehead.

Back: Kyle Cochran, Rose Doerfler, Namit Chaudhary, and Nick Lamson. Front: Mariah Arral, Kathy Fein, and Prof. Kathryn Whitehead.

Outside of research, Mariah is an active member of the Department of Chemical Engineering. She was the 2020 president of the chemical engineering graduate student associations (ChEGSA). During her presidency, Mariah organized events for students to engage while social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. ChEGSA’s efforts were highlighted by Department Head Prof. Anne Robinson in Fortune Magazine. Mariah also led an effort to establish a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Chair position for ChEGSA. Alongside those efforts, Mariah also helped plan professional development events for graduate students. Mariah also started the First-Year mentoring program, which matches first-year Ph.D. students with those who are older. This program is now in its 4th year. In 2019, she was a Social Chair for ChEGSA, helping to organize department events. Mariah also participates in department outreach activities for young students in STEM. In 2021, Mariah was one of the inaugural Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Co-Chairs in ChEGSA. During her tenure, they started a Graduate Student Application Assistance Program to assist students in applying to graduate school.

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Mariah Arral and Prof. Jeffery Halpern

Previously, Mariah worked for Prof. Jeffery Halpern at the University of New Hampshire on creating electrochemical biosensors. Mariah’s work focused on the electrochemical detection of NOHA, a stable intermediate in the urea cycle. During her four years of research she published two first author papers, won a National AIChE poster award, and obtained two fellowships. Mariah also held the role of Lab Manager and trained most incoming students about experimental methods and safety.

Mariah hails from New England and is an avid sports fan. She grew up in Maine, with most of her family living in Massachusetts. Mariah’s mom recently started working as a crisis manager, and her father works in the restraint industry. Mariah is the middle child of three girls. Her older sister, Savanna, is a Lawyer in Boston Massachusetts, and her younger sister Sierra, Analyst at Cleary Gottlieb. In Mariah’s free time she enjoys reading, cooking, and running.

Mariah and her mother Tammy

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Rose Doerfler, Farrah Haeri, Sandra Fomete, and Mariah Arral

Mariah currently lives in Pittsburgh PA with her partner and their two cats: Sucralose (Sukie) and Lilian (Lily).

two cats are on a bed with a green blanket. One cat is a tabby that is black, gray, and brown. The other has the same coloring but is white on its body.
photo is taken on the river walk in Pittsburgh. You can see one of the yellow bridges in the background along with the city. Mariah is sitting on a chain fence and her partner is standing next to her. He is wearing black pants a white shirt and tie.