Ariana was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, and grew up in Texas. She graduated from Brown University, where she concentrated in International and Public Affairs and Latin American and Caribbean Studies, while studying Arabic, Portuguese and her native Spanish.

She earned an MSc in refugee and forced migration studies, where her dissertation examined the criminalisation of women involved in human smuggling across the US–Mexico border. She has interned at the US Department of State, International IDEA and the Fund for the City of New York.

Ariana's interests lie at the intersection of transnational organised crime, migration, law and human rights. She is particularly interested in illicit economies and cross-border criminal networks, including drug trafficking, human smuggling and trafficking, and arms trafficking, as well as the ways in which states and legal systems respond to these activities. Geographically, Ariana's interests centre on Mexico and Latin America, with a broader interest in these dynamics in the Middle East.

Ariana is a Rhodes scholar.