Matthew Schmidt Professor Department of Biology I met my lovely wife, Donna, in 1994 (I was 29, she was 23). Now I know I am old, so this was before the days of online dating – believe it or not, Donna had placed an ad in the Yankee Trader that I answered. So I met my wife from a personal ad! It really wasn’t love at first sight, although obviously we liked each other. She was in the legal profession, and that was fine with me – I have enough science on a daily basis!
Anyway, after much consumption of alcohol and dating for years, I proposed to her on a beach in the Bahamas and we were married in 1999. We now have a beautiful daughter, Emma, who just turned 3. So go for those personal ads!
Michele H. Bogart Professor and Director of Graduate Studies Department of Art I met my husband, Professor Philip Pauly (History Department, Rutgers University), 30 years ago at a cocktail party for new Pre-doctoral Fellows at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. We were both in residence in different museums there, working on our Ph.D. dissertations – his in the History of Science, mine in the History of Art – but the Mall brought us together.
The Smithsonian Institution is justly renowned for its outstanding collections and scholars’ programs, but it’s also a great place for young singles. Who knew?
John J. Shea Associate Professor Anthropology Department I met my future wife, Prof. Pat Crawford, when we were both at MIT taking an archaeology course, ironically enough, on prehistoric stone tools. I had a class that met across the Charles River at Boston University shortly after our MIT class, and I usually had to race there on foot across the Mass. Ave bridge. One day, Pat offered to drive me back to BU with a car her best friend had loaned her for the day. Several years later, her friend gave us that car, and several more years later (1992) we drove it together here to Stony Brook.
Our most memorable meet-up was in Egypt. I was doing my doctoral research in Jerusalem, and missed her. She was digging in the Egyptian desert at the time. We had agreed to meet in Cairo, but I was missing her, so I hopped a bus to Cairo, got out at a crossroad in the desert near her site. I hitched a ride with some farmers hauling goats, and popped out of the car in the middle of her excavation just in time for cocktail hour.
Krin Gabbard Professor of Comparative Literature and English I met my wife in 1973 when we were students at Indiana University. I couldn’t decide if her face was beautiful or ugly or some strange combination of the two. But I loved her smile. After talking to her for a few hours, I decided that she was totally beautiful. We were married eleven weeks after our first date.
E. David Klonsky, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Psychology Alexis and I met in karate class while we were both students at the University of Virginia. I remember that we sparred together after class one day and it I felt like I couldn’t stop smiling. In order to spend more time with her, I sent an email inviting everyone in the class to a movie. Alexis enthusiastically replied that she would come, which made me very happy. Later I found that she thought the email had come from someone else in the class. Nevertheless, we ended up going to a restaurant together after the movie with a couple of friends. Soon after we had our first real date – we saw ‘Enemy at the Gates’ and went to an all-night pancake house. As we left the pancake house I put my arm around her, and when she responded by quickly throwing her arm around me, I knew things were looking good. We married in the summer of 2005.
