They found love at Northeastern
Brenna Sorkin and Ryan Kenny met through Generate, Northeastern’s student-led product development lab. From there, romance bloomed.
Brenna Sorkin and Ryan Kenny did not have the best impression of each other when they first crossed paths at Northeastern University in 2017. Then everything changed.
At the time, Sorkin was a sophomore studying computer science and design and Kenny was in the middle of a five-year program at Northeastern studying chemical engineering and physics. Kenny was also working at the Michael J. and Ann Sherman Center for Engineering Entrepreneurship Education, writing newsletters on student work, including one assignment featuring Sorkin.
“We had a bunch of headshots on file and we were going to use those,” Kenny explained to Northeastern Global News in an interview. “Brenna refused to have that headshot used, which caused a lot more work for me than necessary. So we didn’t start on a great foot.”
The interaction was a blip on the radar in their deepening relationship.
Through the Sherman Center and their shared work with Generate, Northeastern’s student-led product development studio, Kenny and Sorkin first built a friendship rooted in long hours, big ideas and easy laughter. What began as collaboration turned into companionship.
After graduation, they decided to share an apartment in Boston, and they began to share their everyday lives. The quiet comfort of coming home to each other and their late-night conversations developed into love. In September, surrounded by family and 15 Northeastern friends who had witnessed the beginning, they celebrated the next chapter of that journey — promising forever to the person who had once simply been a classmate across campus.
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“Their tale has been a ‘will they, won’t they’ relationship over the years,” said Sherman Center director Theo Johnson, a friend of the couple’s who introduced them and officiated their ceremony. “We’re all really excited that it’s a ‘will they’ situation. I’ve seen them develop into wonderful people, wonderful leaders and builders of community around themselves. It shows the Sherman Center isn’t just shaping careers, it’s shaping lives that carry on long after they leave.”
Generate is what initially drew Sorkin, a Massachusetts native, to transfer to Northeastern. The then-fledgling student org, which operates out of the Sherman Center, was a big selling point as Sorkin knew she wanted to pursue design and computer science.
Shortly after their first email encounter (which Sorkin remembers a bit more fondly), the two met in person in spring 2018 when Kenny, who is from New Jersey, joined Generate. The group, advised by Johnson, only had 30 students at the time, which meant everyone knew everyone and the two eventually became friends.
After graduating Northeastern in 2019, Kenny and Sorkin both went on to work full-time jobs that developed out of co-ops and internships. They also became roommates, along with another friend and Northeastern graduate.
In 2020, COVID hit and their roommate went home to her parents. Kenny and Sorkin fell into a rhythm living together and feelings began to grow.
“We both thought it was pandemic Stockholm syndrome,” Sorkin said. “But at the end of that summer (of 2021), we were like ‘Oh, we actually still want to be together.’”
The couple found their own place together in September 2022 and became engaged in September 2023 during a sunrise hike to the top of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park in Maine. Kenny planned every last detail of the proposal, down to getting friends to come up and surprise Sorkin by photographing the moment, but some last-minute fog and rain almost derailed the plans.
“All this fog rolled in and you could see it was about to clear for a moment,” Sorkin said. “And so he just panics and is like ‘This is the perfect moment’ and forgot to ask me to marry him. He just said ‘You should marry me.’”
The couple legally married in a small ceremony in January 2024, but had a larger wedding in September 2025 of about 50 people at Sarma, an award-winning restaurant in Somerville, Massachusetts, Johnson led the interfaith ceremony where the couple stood under a chuppah they built themselves. They celebrated afterward with their network, which they said included not only friends they met at Northeastern, but also through their Northeastern network as well.
“It was Ryan and Brenna,” Johnson said. “It was warm, welcoming. Everything really represented how inclusive they are in building a community around themselves.”
Today, the couple lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Kenny works as a senior data engineer at renewable energy manufacturer Eolian, and Sorkin works as a principal product designer at restaurant software developer Toast. Both credit Northeastern for helping them land in their careers, especially their time in Generate.
“Co-op is super valuable because you’re working in the real world,” Sorkin said. “But Generate gave me the skills to operate in that space. It’s the safety of being a student, but you’re responsible for outcomes and projects you’re driving.”
The two have continued to stay involved with Generate as well, doing alumni mentoring and attending the group’s showcase held at the end of each semester.
“We both feel like Northeastern was such a great experience and launching point personally and professionally so we want to pay it forward,” Kenny said.
