Mariah L. Arral is a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. David Kaplan’s group at Tufts University.
When looking for a postdoctoral program, Mariah wanted to expand her knowledge of drug delivery, biomaterials, and the immune system. At the same time, she aimed to develop her skills in grant writing, management, teaching, and mentoring students.
Mariah was accepted into the Tufts IRACDA program in 2024, which provided three years of funding and the training she desired in grant management and teaching. However, the program's funding was pulled in April 2025 due to the Trump administration’s changes at the NIH.
Ever dedicated to funding her own research projects, Mariah is now applying for additional fellowships.
Mariah’s career goal is 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.
Postdoctoral Studies
Mariah’s research in the Kaplan lab focuses on developing Silk fibroin biomaterials for drug delivery, tissue engineering, and developing in vitro cell culture models. Mariah is currently working on expanding her skill set to include imaging, molecular biology, and chemistries needed to perform protein modifications.
Graduate School
Mariah received her Ph.D. from the Department of Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). She was an NIH NRSA F31 Fellow and NSF GRFP Fellow in Prof. Kathryn Whitehead’s group. Her work focused on developing new materials for lipid nanoparticles and understanding the relationship between materials, delivery, and immunogenicity.
During her tenure in the Whitehead lab, Mariah actively collaborated with her colleagues. She currently has eleven papers with her as an author, and several more submitted or in the pipeline. Mariah’s first-author papers, based on the five projects she led, have not been published yet, but she hopes to have an update on those soon!
For more information on Mariah’s work, please see the Research Section.
Back: Kyle Cochran, Rose Doerfler, Namit Chaudhary, and Nick Lamson. Front: Mariah Arral, Kathy Fein, and Prof. Kathryn Whitehead.
Outside of her graduate school research, Mariah was an active member of the Department of Chemical Engineering. She was the 2020 president of the Chemical Engineering Graduate Student Association (ChEGSA). During her presidency, Mariah organized events for students to engage with each other while maintaining social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic and planned professional development opportunities. 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. The Chemical Engineering department’s First-Year mentoring program, which is still ongoing, was conceptualized and implemented by Mariah. In 2019, she served as Social Chair for ChEGSA, helping to organize departmental events. In 2021, Mariah was one of the inaugural co-chairs of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in ChEGSA. During her tenure, the DEI co-chairs started a Graduate Student Application Assistance Program to help students apply to graduate school, which continued after her graduation.
Mariah also participated in department outreach activities for young students in STEM and was part of the Skype A Scientist Program.
Controlled Release Society (CRS)
When Mariah asked her Ph.D. advisor which conferences people in their field attended, Dr. Whitehead’s response was, “CRS is our home.”
Mariah took those words to heart and became involved with CRS in 2019, when she joined the Young Scientist Committee as an Ambassador. In 2020, Mariah joined the YSC as a committee member and went on to hold leadership positions, including Marketing Lead and team leader, for several sessions held at the annual meeting.
After attending the 2021 annual meeting in Montreal, Canada, Mariah joined the CRS Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion committee. In this committee, she has organized and led sessions at the annual meeting and trained the CRS board of directors and leadership on ED&I topics.
In 2023, Mariah was awarded the CRS Member of the Year award and invited to give a short talk during the opening ceremony. During her talk, Mariah detailed the challenges of being an openly disabled researcher, but also noted that she had found her home in the research community at CRS. Furthermore, Mariah talked about how she was dedicated to continuing to grow ED&I goals within CRS and asked other CRS members to join her in these efforts.
American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE)
Mariah has been a member of AIChE since her sophomore year of college. She attended her first AIChE annual meeting in 2016, where she won a first-place poster award.
In 2020, Mariah was asked to join AIChE’s Disabilities Outreach & Inclusion Community (DORIC) team to help promote the disability community at AIChE. After assisting in DORIC efforts, Mariah was asked to serve on the Societal Impact Operating Council (SIOC) and is currently in her second term.
Attending the AIChE annual meeting is one way Mariah stays connected with her colleagues outside of the CRS community.
Mariah’s dedication to AIChE, her research career, and engineering education was recognized in 2023 when she was named one of AIChE’s 35 under 35. Additionally, Mariah was profiled by AIChE in 2023.
Engineering Education Research
In addition to her wet lab 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. This project has continued since her graduation and she now holds Principal Investigator status with Dr. Jeffery Halpern.
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 was inducted into the University of New Hampshire Diversity Hall of Fame.
Undergraduate Studies
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.
Personal Life
When asked where she is from, Mariah responds with "New England," as she has lived in all of those states except Connecticut. She grew up in Maine, though she was born in Massachusetts and most of her extended family lives there.
Mariah’s mom works as a crisis manager, while her father works in the restaurant industry. She attended public school in Waterboro, Maine, before going to college in New Hampshire.
Mariah is the middle child of three girls. Her older sister, Savanna, is an attorney in Boston, Massachusetts, and her brother-in-law, Mike Davis, is a physician assistant. Mariah’s younger sister, Sierra, lives in Los Angeles and works in the catering industry.
Mariah currently lives in Malden, MA, with her husband, Nicholas Weber, and their two cats, Sucralose (Sukie) and Lilian (Lily).
In Mariah’s free time, she enjoys reading, traveling, cooking, and running. Currently, Mariah has been to eleven countries and has run in three road races.
Below are some photos of Mariah, her friends, and family.
