Beatriz grew up in Commerce City and found her way to Arrupe Jesuit through a close family friend who saw something in her and pointed her in the right direction. That introduction and the decision to walk through our doors changed the entire trajectory of her life. After learning about the Corporate Work Study Program and what Arrupe was all about, she knew she had found her place.
"I needed a community that felt like home," she shares. And at Arrupe, she found them.
At the heart of her Arrupe experience were the people. Her CWSP supervisors showed her a level of kindness and patience she hadn't expected and that she has carried with her ever since. They gave her a safe place when she needed it most, modeled what it looked like to show up for someone, and taught her more about professional life than any classroom could have on its own. And then there was Mr. Graham, whose science classroom became something of a sanctuary. He didn't just teach chemistry or biology — he cared about his students, and she felt it every single day.
"While so many things in my life were uncertain and scary, science was a place where answers existed, and I got to find them," she reflects. "Mr. Graham instilled in me a love of science, and through it I was able to receive so many amazing opportunities. He also just cared about us. I felt it then and I still feel it when I visit his classroom."
That combination — a rigorous academic experience wrapped in genuine human care — is what Arrupe is built on. And for Beatriz, it became the foundation for everything that followed.
One of the most lasting gifts Arrupe gave her was the Corporate Work Study Program itself. Working in professional environments as a teenager taught her things that no textbook could — how to carry herself in an office, how to receive feedback gracefully, how to ask the right questions, and how to build relationships with people who invested in her growth.
"CWSP taught me so much. One of the things I really learned was how to understand and make sense of feedback," she says. "I learned to ask for feedback and learn how to ask others how they would like to be given feedback. It helped me understand that feedback isn't bad — and that it needs to be given in ways that make people feel heard."
Those are not small lessons. Those are the kinds of lessons that shape careers, leadership styles, and the way a person moves through the world. Today, when she supervises her own students, she finds herself reaching back to what her Arrupe supervisors modeled for her and passing it forward.
After graduating, Beatriz went on to Marquette University before finishing her undergraduate degree at CU Denver. She then earned her master's degree from Colorado State University, and after years of meaningful work in education — including roles at Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center and as an Academic Coach at CU Boulder — she made the decision to go back and pursue her PhD. She graduated in May 2025, and even delivered a TEDxBoulder Salon talk on her research along the way.
Today, she serves as an Assistant Teaching Professor and Director of the Science Bound Program at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she helps first-generation college students find community, build academic confidence, and thrive in the STEM fields. She also conducts research on how students of color and first-generation college students in STEM process failure — work that is deeply personal, deeply important, and deeply rooted in her own journey. In addition, she does community-based research through the Voices of Healing Collective, partnering with Denver-area nonprofits and CU Boulder students to address healing justice issues in the community.
The thread running through all of it? The lessons, the values, and the belief in human potential that she first encountered at Arrupe Jesuit.
She'll tell you she's still writing the next chapter and that's exactly the kind of open, forward-leaning spirit that Arrupe tries to cultivate in every student who walks through our doors. She hopes that chapter includes travel, hiking, paddleboarding, and continuing to pour into the young people she works with every day. She also hopes to one day foster or adopt a child, having learned firsthand through her students the profound difference a safe and loving home can make in a young person's life.
From Commerce City to the halls of CU Boulder — this is what opportunity looks like. This is the Arrupe Advantage. And we couldn't be more proud of her.
