Born in Ohio to parents of Jewish and Mexican ancestry, she has lived in New York, Texas, Nebraska, and Mexico. She moved to Carrboro, NC in 2011. Ariana’s academic and personal interests are deeply tied to the work of Witness for Peace. While completing her PhD at Cornell University, she wrote a dissertation exploring the role of U.S. Latina/o artists and activists who worked in solidarity with Central American peoples during the U.S.-backed civil wars of the 1980s. That work was later expanded into a book, War Echoes: Gender and Militarization in U.S. Latina/o Cultural Production, published by Rutgers University Press in 2014. She has travelled throughout Central America – including Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Panama – to conduct research and regularly spends time in Mexico City.