Ariana Mizan knows how to make every moment count.

Earlier this year, Mizan, a senior studying Strategy, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship at Gies College of Business, received the 2025 Campus Award for Excellence in Public Engagement. This award, given by the University of Illinois, recognizes individuals who serve their communities with purpose and impact.

Mizan’s recognition is well deserved considering her numerous achievements to date: She serves as the Student Trustee for the University of Illinois System Board of Trustees and has held multiple leadership roles on campus advisory boards and senates. She’s a James Scholar and a Chancellor’s Scholar, has received several scholarships for academic achievement and community impact, and is a member of multiple academic honor societies. And that’s only a partial list.

What ties it all together is a clear drive to make an impact through entrepreneurship and service. Mizan views business as a tool for building solutions that matter, whether that’s a medical device, a community resource, or a new way to tackle environmental problems.

That mindset started early. As a high school student at University Laboratory High School in Urbana, Mizan spent time at the Champaign-Urbana Community FabLab, where she gained hands-on experience with fabrication and prototyping. Those skills would eventually help her win the Carle Illinois College of Medicine Engineering Health Make-a-Thon as highschooler. The winning project: a pill cap and companion app designed to help prevent opioid misuse.

Since then, Mizan has continued to explore the intersection of business, innovation, and social impact. She has participated in the Disruption Lab at Gies Business and the Community-Academic Scholars Program at the Siebel Center for Design. She has been involved in launching entrepreneurial ventures like Entrepreneur Hub through Founders and has worked on sustainability-focused products such as CreAlgae, a petroleum-free bioplastic, through Illinois Enactus.

“Innovation is not just product design,” she says. “It’s about programs, systems, ways to improve society.”

That perspective came to life again in her role as an early contributor with CAPSLocks, a cancer-induced alopecia prevention startup launched in partnership with Carle Illinois College of Medicine. There, Mizan led business strategy and legal operations, collaborating with faculty and startup advisors across disciplines.

While her résumé is impressive, Mizan is quick to credit the mentors and communities that have helped shape her journey, from campus programs and faculty leaders to her peers and network at Gies Business.

“It’s so important to build and lean into your network,” she says. “And that doesn’t mean asking people to do things for you - it’s about maintaining connections with people who encourage your growth and grow alongside you. It’s building your own personal board of directors.”

This summer, Mizan interned in the Commercial Leadership Program at GE Healthcare, where she’s working on process improvements around strategic planning with hospitals, and building predictive analytics models for commercial operations.

“Whatever I do, I want it to be centered around people and their stories,” she says. “Stories are adjacent to everything we do, and they are the foundation for human connection. I never want my career and the work I do to be lacking in that humanity.”

As she prepares to begin her senior year at Gies Business and her second term as Student Trustee, Mizan continues to be guided by a sense of purpose and possibility.

“I hope to honor the values behind this award by listening closely, acting boldly, and serving fully,” she says. “I’m grateful to the awards committee, to Dean Stephen Bryan for the nomination, and to Dean W. Brooke Elliott, President Tim Killeen, and Brian Fulton for their support.”