On her own terms
Arianna McCarty brings excellence to everything she does, from everyday tasks to her highest pursuits.
In 2021, Arianna McCarty was a high school junior taking calculus 3 and planning a future in medicine. When the pandemic hit, she turned an unexpected setback into a new direction — one that led her to engineering and launched a fast-rising career in research.
On Saturday, McCarty graduated from the Թ of Colorado Boulder summa cum laude with honors in chemical and biological engineering and as theOutstanding Graduate of the College of Engineering and Applied Science, along with some of the nation’s most competitive undergraduate awards and scholarships.
Her awards include a National Science FoundationGraduate Research Fellowship (GRFP); ascholarship from the; aChurchill Scholarship, which includes one year of master’s study at Cambridge Թ; and aGoldwater Scholarship.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, McCarty’s classes at Centaurus High School in Lafayette quickly moved fully online, and she soon found herself unchallenged and wanting more.
“Because I wasn't yet 18, I couldn't volunteer in a clinical role,” McCarty said. “So I started thinking about research. It was something I’d planned to pursue in college, and it became a ‘why not start now?’ kind of thing.”
Encouraged by her older brother and his girlfriend, McCarty contacted CU Boulder professors about computational research opportunities, as in-person lab work was rare during the pandemic.
She soon began working with the at CU Boulder’s BioFrontiers Institute in partnership with Colorado Children's Hospital, analyzing genomic sequences from patients with a range of conditions. At the same time, she enrolled in Colorado Early Colleges, where she took college classes concurrently at Front Range Community College.
Upon graduation, McCarty was awarded theBoettcher Scholarship, a highly competitive merit-based award for Colorado high school seniors.
Turning point
Arianna McCarty in a lab.
McCarty says she loved computational research, but soon realized she also wanted a hands-on lab experience.
The summer after her freshman year, she joined the Clark Lab at CU Anschutz through the Vetter Foundation, whereshe studied the respiratory microbiome and investigated how native bacteria in the respiratory tract can protect against pathogens.
Still thinking about a career in medicine, she drove daily to the Anschutz campus for full days of research, then attended classes several evenings a week at Denver Health to earn her Emergency Medical Technician certificate.
In the fall of her sophomore year, she worked as an emergency room (ER) technician at a level one trauma center at UCHealth Medical Center of the Rockies and on the medical surgery floor at Boulder Community Health. As a technician, she wheeled patients into the emergency room, collected vital signs, placed IVs and performed EKGs. On the medical-surgery floor, she provided ongoing patient care, including post-surgery support, monitoring vitals and responding to call lights.
At that point, she was working roughly 40 hours a week on night shifts while also managing her college classes, several part-time jobs and research. The demanding experience prompted a turning point and set her on a new path.
“I bit off more than I could chew,” McCarty said. “I didn’t have time for my friends. I wasn’t as engaged in my coursework, especially after having been awake for 36 hours.
“I enjoyed patient care and working in a hospital, but I eventually decided it wasn't worth doing night shifts for a decade,” she continued. “The work was a very structured, systematic, flowchart-like process. It didn’t engage me as much as research does. It was difficult emotionally to leave my medical plan behind, but it felt easy to pivot to research, which I find very gratifying.”
Road to research
McCarty is interested in tissue engineering—the process of building biological tissues in the lab—and regenerative medicine, which focuses on repairing damaged tissues. To gain research experience in those areas before attending graduate school, she joined theBurdick Biomaterials and Biofabrication Laboratory through theYoung Scholars Summer Research Program and has continued her work with that lab.
Arianna McCarty presenting her research at the 2024 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) annual meeting in San Diego.
This fall, one of her academic awards, theChurchill Scholarship, will take her to the Թ of Cambridge for a one-year Master of Philosophy in biological sciences. During that time, she will work under Dr. Sam Bajati at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, a world-renowned genomics research center, conducting computational research to study genetic information from individual cells while engaging with an international research community.
McCarty’s focus will be on the adolescent immune system. Her goal is to better understand why pediatric blood cancers such as leukemia arise and to help inform potential therapies, McCarty said.
“More broadly, this experience will strengthen my computational skill set as I prepare to pursue a PhD in the United States,” she said.
Passion unearthed
Although McCarty entered CU Boulder with a significant number of college credits, she remained enrolled at CU Boulder for the traditional four years, completing her degree requirements as a junior, then spending her senior year taking graduate courses and exploring subjects that interested her.
“I discovered a love for philosophy,” said McCarty. “CU offers uniquely strong programs that introduce engineers to these ideas through theHerbst Programfor Engineering, Ethics & Society and theEngineering Leadership Program (ENLP). The offers a freshman critical encounters course that introduces more philosophical readings. I've been able to take advantage of all these opportunities.”
Arianna McCarty receives the Undergraduate Student Employee of the Year in the leadership category from the National Student Employment Association. Standing to the right is Professor Rob Davis, who nominated McCarty for the Award.
While winning numerous awards and scholarships for her academic and research pursuits, McCarty also received national and campus teaching awards, including theUndergraduate Student Employee of the Year from the National Student Employment Association for her work as a course assistant and mentor.
McCarty said her new-found passion for teaching surprised her. Since her sophomore year, she's held office hours, assisted in grading papers and given several lectures.
“I've had a blast with it,” she said. “I've been the teaching assistant for a group of students and have watched them grow from taking the introductory material and energy balances course to being a course assistant for their senior design class. It's been an unexpected, gratifying experience to be a part of that journey and community.
“The student employee awards have been more meaningful than some of the big-name awards,” she continued. “There’s something powerful about feeling that the people around me—within my department and among those I look up to—hold my work in high regard.”
She fondly remembers giving a brief lecture on leadership and having students come up afterward to share how much they enjoyed it.
“Those experiences made it clear to me that what I’m doing can have a direct, positive impact. A lot of what’s been motivating me towards being a professor outside of research is that I have enjoyed teaching and mentoring. I hope that as I progress through my career, I can continue mentoring, formally or informally and directly impact students' lives.”
Future plans
McCarty hopes to integrate all of her previous lab experiences in tissue engineering, immunology and computation into a unified research focus. She plans to become a professor and establish her own regenerative medicine lab.
Her top choice is to pursue her PhD at Johns Hopkins Թ in Baltimore, Maryland. Although she was accepted, the program could not defer her admission until after she completed her master’s at the Թ of Cambridge. Instead of choosing one of the numerous other PhD programs she was accepted to, she plans to reapply to Johns Hopkins after finishing her year at Cambridge.
In many ways, McCarty has come full circle, hoping her research will help heal patients in the same way she once hoped to work with them directly.
“In terms of research, the ultimate goal is human health impact,” she said. “At the end of the day it would be fantastic to figure out some way to make organs in a lab and how to heal different types of wounds.
“But those are more lofty pies in the sky. A lot of progress in science comes from small, incremental steps that eventually lead to big end goals. I’m interested in how research moves from the lab into the real world and makes an impact, rather than just staying in academic papers that never get used.
“It’s my ultimate goal — for my research to help improve patient care.”
It seems you are on the go all the time. How do you stay grounded?
I spend time with my people. I like having my few close friends, and I stick to them. I am not someone who texts 100 friends. I couldn't keep that up. My sanity check is to spend time with my friends or my partner, have random late-night conversations, cook dinner together and enjoy the little in-between moments of life.
What could students do to stand out?
If you are not the most hardworking person, intelligence doesn't mean much. At the end of the day, you need to put in long hours even when you don't want to. Be the person who organizes a club's Google Drive and who stays after a club meeting to clean up pizza boxes and close the door. No one wants to do it, but it will be helpful.
Over time, this will set you apart and make it clear how engaged and caring you are, to the point that others start asking for your opinions. Before long, you’ll find yourself in a leadership position with the opportunity to contribute even more.
How do you stay motivated when you are doing those less exciting tasks?
I am someone who gets it. I really enjoyed the ER. It's a 12-hour night shift, and those shifts are not for the faint of heart. But there's a sense of triumph and success in doing it, and also a strong sense of community with everyone around you going through the same thing.
It was similar in ProfessorJason Burdick’s Lab. When we were there late at night, we'd start playing random fun music, and we'd dance. It’s nice to feel like you're all in it together.
Is there anything else that you would like to add?
A big thank you goes to my brother, Brian McCarty, and Dr.Jessica Stelzel, his fiancée. Both have been mentors for me since high school.
It's the same with Professor Jason Burdick, Assistant ProfessorRyan Layer, and a huge shout out to Assistant Professor at CU Anschutz. She was the first to let me go wild with my scientific curiosities. I would send her the things I was curious about and how I wanted to test them, and she was game. She gave me a lot of advice and mentorship on the way.
Arianna, with her brother and mentor, Bryan McCarty.
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