As a scientist at Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis, Paola Ariza-Storch ’23 inspects injectable pharmaceuticals before they make their way to shelves and pharmacies. She feels she’s helping people in her role in medicine as she uses the skills she learned in Butler’s Biochemistry program each day.

Ariza-Storch credits the many opportunities she received at Butler for paving her path to Eli Lilly. During her time at Butler, she did undergraduate research with Chemistry and Biochemistry Professor Todd Hopkins, an experience that helped her secure research grants, internships, and other hands-on experiences.

“I think every science student at Butler should do research at least once because in class, you gain a good foundation of the chemical principles, but that looks different in real life and application like anything else,” Ariza-Storch says. “Having the opportunity to do research allows you to apply the knowledge you’ve developed in school and in your courses to take you to that next step to get jobs and understand where in the sciences you’d like to go.”

With Hopkins, she studied the luminescence of various solvents and whether the solutions would dissolve or emit light. They worked on developing sustainable emissive layers for producing brighter organic light-emitting displays (OLEDs).

Even though Ariza-Storch would typically gravitate toward work involving the chemistry of the human body, the experience was still incredibly valuable and she counted herself lucky to work alongside Hopkins.

“Dr. Hopkins really prioritizes his students,” Ariza-Storch says. “He prioritizes both doing the research and making sure your name is on it so you’re able to use it for other opportunities. Before I graduated from Butler, I had four publications with my name on them. That’s huge.”

With his help and mentorship, Ariza-Storch went to the University of Michigan for the Frankel Cardiovascular Center Innovation program her sophomore year, then the following year secured her internship at Eli Lilly. She also traveled to San Diego for the American Chemical Society conference to present Hopkins’ research, and again to Puerto Rico for a conference for minority students in STEM.

Whenever she was unsure if external funding would come through for her to attend, Hopkins always offered his support, reassuring her they’d find a way to make it happen.

“Having that encouragement and having someone believe in you was so valuable to me,” she says.

Hopkins said getting to know students like Paola is one of the greatest joys of his role. When it comes to undergraduate research, he especially loves seeing the moment students realize they’ve made a brand-new discovery.

“It is really important institutionally that we provide these experiences to our students,” Hopkins says. “I also think it is an important part of the job as science faculty to help train our future STEM workforce, and undergraduate research is maybe the best way to further that training… to provide a platform where students can thrive, create knowledge, and gain confidence.”

Hopkins shared that Butler often offers support for student research beyond course credit, with Butler Summer Institute (BSI) being one of the most significant avenues. He said Paola’s experience as a STEM student was unique because she had space to pursue another one of her interests—the arts—through BSI despite her rigorous degree curriculum.

“My art is very science-inspired, so it really felt like a whole closing of the loop for me,” Ariza-Storch said. “My artwork was created to promote diversity in STEM, and those works should now be in Dugan Hall because Butler bought them from me. Being able to be well-rounded is what I liked about Butler—with a little bit of initiative on your part, Butler has a supportive community to allow you to do a lot.”

The opportunities she enjoyed at Butler also helped nurture her path to living out her vision of leadership.

“I was President of the Latinx Student Union at one point, I was RA for three years, and I worked as a tour guide for Admissions all four years,” Ariza-Storch says. “I also worked with a lot of diversity efforts, so one of my passions in addition to science is helping the underserved.”

Ariza-Storch looks forward to her future in medical school, where she plans to combine her love for biology and medicine with her call to advocacy. She is considering a specialization in geriatrics, and her dream is to see more Hispanic and Spanish-speaking providers in medicine.