When Regina Marie Arriola traces the contours of her educational journey, she says it’s easy to see the impacts of the mentors in her life. In high school, she credits an energetic physics teacher, whose MOs were hands-on learning and building up the young women in the class, with sparking her early interest in engineering. When she got to college, it was people like Associate Professor of Biology and Microbiology Christopher Alteri, who spent dozens of office hours chatting with her about her curiosities and questions — even when they fell outside what they were studying in class.

A Multitude of Research

At UM-Dearborn, Arriola’s enthusiasm for both subjects has found an outlet in the bioengineering program, where she’s been a standout student, researcher and mentor herself. She recently completed a dual undergraduate degree in bioengineering and mechanical engineering and is now enrolled in an accelerated master’s program. Despite that demanding academic schedule, she’s also found time to do research. In 2022, while working with Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Amanda Esquivel in the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience program, she designed and completed her own mini study on the impacts of foot orthotics on foot pressure and knee movements during jump landings. She’s been working as a research assistant in Esquivel’s lab ever since and has contributed to numerous projects, including their current investigation of the effects of squat tempo on the biomechanics of the quadriceps muscles. In addition, for her recent senior design project, Arriola worked with a young baseball player with symbrachydactyly, a congenital disorder which has left him with fewer fingers on his fielding hand. Arriola’s group designed prototypes for an enhanced baseball glove, which helped him close the glove using just his thumb.

Uplifting STEM Women

Arriola is also using her experience to lift up other young women in engineering. Two years ago, she joined the Society of Women Engineers student organization as a general body member, but it didn’t take long for her to take on leadership roles, including her current position as president. This year, she helped organize an even bigger version of SWE’s annual P.O.W.E.R conference, a networking event for women students, alumni and employers in engineering fields. She also spearheaded SWE’s new internal internship program, which pairs its current e-board members with students interested in serving in leadership roles. With SWE, she’s also organized multiple events that brought high school students to campus, where they got a chance to tour engineering labs, meet students and faculty, and do hands-on activities. “This group has made such a difference in my professional and personal life,” Arriola says. “I ended up getting my first internship because I learned about it through SWE. And I know when I did my internship, I was the only woman and the only person of color. I think I just want to help create a future where a girl who wants to do engineering doesn’t feel like an outlier. And this group, where women are in charge and we’re all lifting each other up, I definitely feel empowered.”

At the Intersection of Science and Art

Outside of engineering, Arriola is also passionate about helping others. Most recently, she volunteered for Alternative Spring Break — a program in which students don’t always know all the details of their service project until the last minute. When it was revealed they’d be heading to Cincinnati to work on housing and homelessness issues — and sleeping on cots in a church and showering in public bathrooms, just like the folks experiencing homelessness — some students almost decided not to go. But Arriola said the highly immersive experience ended up being one of the most rewarding service projects she’s ever participated in. “A lot of times, when you’re volunteering, you come in for the day, do something nice, like serve food, and then you leave. But that’s sort of like putting a very small band-aid on a problem,” she says. “We got to have discussions with people who are actually working on affordable housing and people experiencing homelessness, and learned about what causes displacement and gentrification. It was just a much deeper experience, and now I think all of us are going to take that back to our own communities.” For Arriola, that included creating a piece of artwork inspired by her ASB experience that was displayed during the “Respond/Resist/Rethink” exhibition at UM-Ann Arbor’s Stamps Gallery.

Now that Arriola is closing in on graduation, she’s naturally thinking about what’s next. Interestingly, despite all her formal training, her dream job isn’t exactly in the bioengineering field. In addition to being an engineer, Arriola is an artist, and she’d love to find a way into a career in animatronics, especially the kind of character-based robots you see in big theme parks. During a recent event, she actually got to chat with an engineer from Disney, who described the intense detail that goes into creating robotic movements that match the films. “Something like that, where there’s a lot of biomechanics and movement but there’s also an opportunity to be creative — that would be the perfect fit,” she says.