Arden Hody (b. 1995) grew up in Bells Corners, Nepean, in the west end of Ottawa, Ontario. She attended Bell High School and was active in Girl Guides (GGC) throughout her childhood. The Hody family attended the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ottawa from 2001, where Hody participated in Religious Exploration classes and was active in the youth group. During high school, Hody took on leadership roles at church and in Guiding and attended conferences and camps in New York, Switzerland, New Brunswick, Alberta, and Ontario. She went to Doe Lake Camp for sleep-away camp in 2004 and transferred to Camp Woolsey in 2005, returning every summer until 2010.
Hody started working at Unicamp of Ontario, a Unitarian Universalist summer camp and conference centre, in 2012. Working variously as a counsellor and a cook between 2012 and 2015, she often attributed this time in her life for her love of cooking. Hody was the inaugural Out-Trip facilitator and led trips for Unicamp youth in the Massassauga Provincial Park on Georgian Bay in 2014 and 2015. In 2016, Hody was promoted to Assistant Director and took over responsibility for the day-to-day operations of the camp. She held that position for in 2016, 2017, and 2019. In 2018, Hody went to work as the Camp Director at Camp Wyoka and Camp Adelaide (GGC) during their last year of operations.
Hody attended the College of Humanities at Carleton University between 2013 and 2018, pursing honour research in religious studies. She participated in a reciprocal exchange program in 2015-2016, attended the University of Stirling in Scotland. In 2019, she returned to Carleton to complete a Master of Public History and a Graduate Diploma in Curatorial Studies. In 2020, Hody moved to Toronto for her research into the display of mortuary objects at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). She received an Ontario Graduate Scholarship in 2020 to complete her degree, graduating in 2021. Hody returned to school in 2023 to pursue a Master of Information in Archives and Records Management at the University of Toronto.
While at Carleton University, Hody became active in CUPE2600, the union that represented teaching assistants. Her work recognized by the History Department when she was invited to be the TA mentor in 2020-2021. Hody developed resources for teaching undergraduate research skills and circulated news letters throughout the academic year.
In 2019, Hody began her career in museums and archives. She completed practicums at the Canadian Museum of History and the National Gallery of Canada before the first COVID-19 lockdown. She continued to perform remote contract work for museums occasionally over the next two years while working in communications. In 2023, Hody was hired by the ROM to consolidate three disparate herbarium collections of Crataugus specimens. She worked in the Green Plant Herbarium (TRT) throughout the first year of her MI. In 2024, Hody went to the Royal British Columbia Museum to contribute to their "Prep, Pack, and Move" project. In 2025, Hody graduated with her MI and started work at the Trent University Archives.