Work-life balance looks a little different for these married professors
Ryan and Abigail Koppes met on their high school ski team. Now, they’re married and working together at Northeastern.
Abby Koppes relocated to Boston when she was named the first future faculty fellow at Northeastern University in 2013. Two years later, her husband, Ryan Koppes, landed in the office right next to hers by coincidence.
“It doesn’t feel weird anymore because it’s been so organic,” Ryan Koppes told Northeastern Global News. “It has always felt natural.”
The two have been through a lot together over the years. There was the 11-hour-long heart surgery that Abby — Abby Eldridge at the time — underwent when she was 16 to fix a type of arrhythmia caused by abnormal electric activity in the heart. As Abby’s family waited in the hospital for most of the day, Ryan and some of his family members were there as well.
That was six months after the two, who had met as juniors on the ski racing team at the private Northfield Mount Hermon boarding school, began dating.
After graduating from Northfield Mount Herman in 2003, the couple moved to Troy, New York, where they received their bachelor’s, master’s and doctorates in biomedical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. After finishing their master’s degrees in 2010, they got married where it all began: their high school.
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Looking back over their time together, and especially that early test of their relationship when she was in the hospital, Abby said she knew back then what she wanted in a life partner.
“Even as kids, we knew it was serious,” Abby said. “Seeing how supportive Ryan and his family were, even at such a young age, really stuck with me.”
Now, the married couple are members of the chemical and bioengineering faculty at Northeastern University.
Since 2015, the two have published a number of research papers together and received joint grants, This includes funding from the National Science Foundation, NASA and the National Institute of Health.
For some, all of this time with a partner would be overkill. But the Koppes find this lends to their work and partnership as they’re able to share ideas and collaborate.
“It’s been a real blessing,” Abby said. “Like anyone else who’s doing research, you end up collaborating with the people around you (and) the type of research we do is bigger than one person.”
People often assume they’re siblings, they said, thanks to their shared last name. Someone once asked if they were twins. “You get all sorts of weird questions,” Abby said, adding that sometimes people view them and their research differently once they find out they’re married. However, she said they’ve done some of their best work together.
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For instance, their latest research found a way to transform stem cells from a patient’s naval cavity into Schwann cells, which support nerves and repair damage. This can be used to repair the damaged nerve cells in people who’ve experienced serious physical trauma, without removing Schwann cells from another limb and risking side effects.
But that’s not to say they spend date nights together in the lab huddled over a petri dish with pipettes. When not working side-by-side, the Koppes like to travel and attend musical festivals. They’ve made it out to Tennessee for the Bonnaroo musical festival 11 times and spend days off at their vacation home in Vermont, where they still do a lot of skiing. They also love dogs and, fittingly, have two two fluffy black-and-white Huskies named Draco and Cheese.
“It makes us happier to work together,” Ryan Koppes added. “For some people, it’s their nightmare … but academics persists in your life. We’ll be riding a ski gondola and talking about science. That’s work-life balance for me.”
