“Where are you from?” Utah. Virginia. Belgium. Colorado. Washington. Hawaii. It’s sort of a difficult question to answer in one word. All over the place – My parents were military. Mine too! Ellie and Kollin have both had to take long, deep breaths before usually-simple get-to-know-you icebreakers. Why? Well, let me show you a map of North America. (see map below) Where are you from? Minnesota? On lake superior? That’s cool. And Ellie, where are you from? Oh! Well… where did you… how did that work? Right. Well Kollin, how about Oh. New continent. You don’t need to- …Ellie and Kollin aren’t from anywhere, really. So how did they meet? Well it all happened right here: Ellie and Kollin met for the first time during college. Well, just before. The two first crossed paths at the birthday party of mutual friends. Surrounded by new people, the “where are you froms?” were flying, and Ellie and Kollin were furiously parrying the question. This opened an opportunity to flirt which Kollin did, very subtly. [Editor’s note: the subtlety of this flirting is unconfirmed, though the editor was the recipient, and found it quite obvious] Over the course of the next year, other coincidences followed. Ellie took a Religious Philosophy class and mentioned it at breakfast, and Kollin happened to register on the last day registration was open. Ellie texted the group and invited people to attend a guest lecture with her, and Kollin happened to have a very real interest in that objectively boring subject. Ellie was going down to the breakfast hall early, Kollin was already there because he is a famously early riser, and his first class was at 2. Coincidences. [Editor’s note: this didn’t seem weird at the time.] One thing is certain, Kollin and Ellie’s first date was sophomore year at MIT. If you asked Kollin what he thought was their first date, he would have said the sophomore year Winter Formal. It turns out, in fact, their first date was on a basketball court months before. Kollin had asked Ellie to platonically join him to movies, romantic candlelit dinners, romantic… bowling – all to no avail. Eventually, when Kollin asked a group of friends to join him for some basketball after lunch, Ellie chimed in as the lone “yes.” Creepy, right? Well, they shot around and talked for an hour or so and Kollin balled like he normally does, no presh, super cool, sick crossover, reverse lay-up, swishes only, ball is life etc. Kollin thought no more of it, but apparently, Ellie was “evaluating” him. And he’s the weird one? [Editor’s note: Kollin could have gone to the NBA.] Ellie and Kollin made things official April 9, 2017. The last two years at MIT were filled with couple’s halloween costumes, Pajama-walks to Ellie’s lab, and the rapid expansion of Kollin’s culinary tastes. Within a year of the relationship beginning, Kollin and Ellie were making post-college plans. Ellie put together a top list of PhD programs in cities Kollin was likely to find work, and Kollin just asked that Ellie apply to one program in New York City, in case he got an internship at the John Oliver Show. He didn’t, but Ellie did get into Columbia, and fell in love with it during the interview process. Kollin was over the moon. They moved together to Morningside Heights in Manhattan, and have lived there since graduating in 2019. They even adopted a dog, named Möbius! Ellie is in her fifth year of a neurobiology PhD and Kollin is a partner and manager for a grant writing company. On October 30, 2023, Kollin proposed to Ellie in the Catskill Mountains, at a waterfall named Möbius falls. [Editor’s note: this waterfall is called Möbius falls because it only exists during a rainstorm. We missed the other, much larger and already-named waterfall until after the proposal]