Leading with Purpose: Creating Impact Across Campus and Beyond
How a senior is building teams, ideas, and connections.
Spend a few minutes with Ariana Ludwig ’26, and one thing becomes immediately clear: she is constantly building something: teams, ideas, and connections.
Across campus, Ariana is known as a field hockey captain, an Eagle Scout, an innovator, a mentor, and a community leader. But the thread running through her story is not a title or award, although there are plenty. It is the way she notices what is needed, brings people together, and turns possibility into action.
“I love being the connection between different people and spaces,” Ariana says.
That instinct has shaped her experience at LJCDS. She has helped lead teams, welcome prospective families, support younger students, organize moments that bring the community together, and design solutions with real-world impact. For Ariana, those opportunities have made her feel both empowered and trusted.
“The biggest piece is having adults who invite me into new spaces and who encourage me to lead,” she says.
Leading on the Field
Field hockey quickly became one of the most visible expressions of Ariana’s leadership.
When she arrived at LJCDS in eighth grade, she “didn’t even know field hockey existed.” She tried the sport in Middle School, continued in Upper School, and began watching the leaders ahead of her closely.
“I remember looking toward my junior and senior years wanting to lead with our core covenant at heart,” Ariana says.
As a two-year captain, Ariana helped guide a young team through growth and challenge. Senior year brought a new test: only a few upperclassmen on a team made up mostly of younger players. Ariana had to learn to lead differently, especially when progress in practice did not immediately translate into games.
“I wanted to be the best leader I could, especially in the new team environment,” she says. “To me, this meant embodying our team’s core covenant, GREAT, and putting in the effort to connect with each of my teammates.”
LJCDS Head Field Hockey Coach Krista Jackson saw that growth clearly. “Ari’s growth extends beyond her athletic prowess. It’s best highlighted in her dynamic leadership and compassion for others.”
That leadership also showed up in the team’s annual Orange Game, which raises funds and awareness for Blood Cancer United, formerly the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Ariana, with the help of the team, helped organize raffle baskets, pledge sheets, baked goods, teammate shifts, sweatshirts, halftime activities, and coordination with the organization. Over three years, the event raised more than $12,000.
Ariana has learned that leadership becomes more impactful when more people feel empowered to participate. “I love inviting others to lead,” she says. “I believe the most successful teams are ones where everyone feels like they play an active role in the team’s success and have the opportunity to lead in their own way.”
That presence stood out beyond LJCDS as well. Ariana made an impression while visiting colleges and attending athletic clinics. She will continue her academic and field hockey career at Johns Hopkins University.
“While Ari is a phenomenal athlete with nearly endless potential to become an amazing college player, who she is as a person impresses us even more,” says Johns Hopkins Head Field Hockey Coach Jane Wells. “Ari is one of those people who you want to be around and want on your team.”
Building Something That Lasts
Ariana’s leadership also took shape through her Eagle Scout project, an accomplishment earned by fewer than 8% of scouts.
She had dreamed of becoming an Eagle Scout since joining Scouting at age 10, but choosing a project took time. While visiting colleges for field hockey, she noticed that many had their names and logos on their goals. When she returned to LJCDS, she wanted to bring that same sense of identity to the school’s nondescript goals.
“I realized there was an opportunity to make them feel more connected to the team and the program,” Ariana says. The goals had been donated years earlier and had not been updated in nearly a decade. Ariana saw a chance to give back to a program that had given her so much.
Working on a tight deadline before her 18th birthday, she coordinated with Coach Jackson, the Innovation Lab, the Operations Department, teammates, coaches, friends, and family. She used design and innovation tools, including a sticker cutter and a laser cutter, to create stencils. The team sanded, painted, weatherproofed, replaced hardware, and customized the goals with “Torreys” and the field hockey core covenant: GREAT, for Growth, Resilience, Encouragement, Accountability, and Trust.
Working on a tight deadline before her 18th birthday, she coordinated with Coach Jackson, the Innovation Lab, the Operations Department, teammates, coaches, friends, and family. She used design and innovation tools, including a sticker cutter and a laser cutter, to create stencils. The team sanded, painted, weatherproofed, replaced hardware, and customized the goals with “Torreys” and the field hockey core covenant: GREAT, for Growth, Resilience, Encouragement, Accountability, and Trust.
“It was truly a team effort,” Ariana says. “To see everybody come together to help make this possible and get to give back to the field hockey program that’s given me so much was a really special opportunity.”
The project taught her more than planning and execution. It taught her how to trust others. “Working with my coach and the LJCDS community not only allowed me the space to fail, but also pushed me to be a creative problem solver,” she says.
Innovation with Real-World Impact
Ariana’s ability to recognize a need and work toward a solution extends to design and innovation.
In partnership with an occupational therapist from Rady Children’s Hospital, Ariana developed Chromopad, a sensory device for children with limited mobility. The device is now being used in clinics across the country and earned Ariana the Rostam Reifschneider Endowed Award for Leadership, Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
She has also applied design thinking to broader community challenges. As part of a team at the World Design Policy Conference, Ariana helped design a secure locker system for individuals experiencing homelessness in San Diego. Her team earned the “most implementable” award, standing out among teams that included university students from across the region.
“Ari is a true problem-solver and an infectious leader,” says Director of Design and Innovation Dan Lenzen. “She will teach herself whatever it is she needs to learn in order to make her solution happen, and she is going to take you along for the adventure. We offer her challenge after challenge, and she tackles them all.”
For Ariana, LJCDS’s Design and Innovation program opened doors she had not imagined. “I didn’t even think that was a possibility,” she says. “The opportunities here are mind-blowing.”
Through LJCDS’s Design and Innovation program, Ariana discovered how far an idea could go with the right support. “The opportunities that I was given were more than what I imagined was possible.”
Those opportunities were not just technical. Yes, she learned how to solder and how to use laser cutters and 3D printers. But she also learned how to present and advocate for her ideas in real-world settings, from funding pitches to expos, conferences, and competitions.
“It’s not only the physical material skills that helped me grow my toolbox,” she says. “It’s also the communication skills and being able to pitch in front of an audience.”
Curious Across Every Space
Ariana does not fit neatly into one category, and that is one of the things she values most about her LJCDS experience.
“I can be a scientist. I can be an athlete. I can be an artist. I can be working in social justice,” she says. “I can be all these different things.”
Her curiosity often leads her to unexpected places. During the school’s annual fundraising event, Blue Bash, she shared a story about helping Lower School science students with dissections. She recalls being handed “a bag full of cow eyeballs” by science educator Mr. Needle and wondering, “How did I get here?”
The answer, for Ariana, was curiosity. She first signed up to help with dissections for extra credit in AP Biology, then returned for her senior year because she loved guiding younger students as they discovered something new.
“My favorite part is when they’re going through the dissection, and you see the little kids’ faces light up,” she says. “That joy of curiosity and discovery is what made me want to keep coming back.”
That same sense of discovery has helped shape her interest in neuroscience and psychology. “I love learning the ‘why’ behind our brains,” Ariana says.
A Connector at Heart
If there is one word that keeps returning in Ariana’s story, it is connection.
She describes mentors who introduced her to new ideas, from field hockey leadership to social justice work. During an Experiential Education Week civil rights trip, one reflection activity asked students to complete a puzzle after a piece had been removed.
This activity stuck with Ariana as she thought about how “we wouldn’t be able to see the whole story if we didn’t have all the pieces,” she says.
That idea stayed with her. She sees leadership, service, and community the same way: as opportunities to find the missing pieces and bring them into view.
On campus, Ariana has served as a Torrey Ambassador, Peer Leader, Eco-Action Team leader, and member of the Community Service Board. She has logged more than 700 hours of service, including work with 92130 Cares, a local food rescue organization that coordinates free farmers markets for families in low-income housing communities.
“I see service not only as a way to give back to your community, but also as a way to build connection,” Ariana says.
Those connections show up in large projects and small gestures. She has helped coordinate campus events, including taping the field for the butterfly photo in 2023 and celebrating the centennial by organizing the school’s “100” photo in January. She gets excited the night before Open House and visitor days, often coming in early to help set up. She enjoys meeting new families, working with younger students, and saying hello across campus.
Coach Jackson sees that presence every day.
“She says hi to the Operations and Security folks when she walks by, takes a detour to help you carry something to your office, and will say yes to any request to represent the various programs she’s a part of,” Coach Jackson says. “She shows immense gratitude for her opportunities and is always willing to pay it forward.”
Looking Ahead
Next year, Ariana will bring that same energy to Johns Hopkins. “We are so excited for Ari to join us,” says Coach Wells. “I’m confident she’ll have a very positive impact on everyone around her and on our program.”
Ariana still remembers the call inviting her to commit. She was upstairs in an Airbnb during a field hockey tournament in Virginia Beach. After she hung up, she screamed, ran downstairs, and told her mom, her best friend, and her best friend’s mom the news.
“I was so shocked by it,” she says. “There’s no way this is actually happening.”
But it was happening. And in many ways, it reflected what Ariana has learned about herself at LJCDS. “You have to create a space for yourself in the world,” she says. “And it’s going to take you to be the changemaker that makes that happen.”At LJCDS, Ariana has created that space again and again: on the field, in the Innovation Lab, through service, and in the relationships she has built across campus.
As Coach Jackson puts it, “She makes everything she is a part of better, and I am a better coach and person from my experiences with her.”
