Sridevi Kaza & Alec Trela

How did we meet?

Alec: Before entering the MRSD program, our class started a Slack channel to try and get the ball rolling socially. This was my first interaction with Sri, via a Slack DM. At the time I didn’t think much about it, and I think my conversation was particularly dry. I believe Sri thought I was a little weird. Our first meeting in person was during a Friday RI social event, where all RI members could assemble in the NSH auditorium for a few drinks and interact. Here, I met up with a small group of new MRSD folk (although who specifically, has been lost to me). The one I specifically remember being there was Sri. Immediately, I was hooked. Incredible conversation, bubbly personality, stunning, and great smile. While I did not act on this for some time, I knew I was interested from the start. 

Sri: Before I moved to Pittsburgh to start MRSD, I was living in Washington D.C. with a group of girls and working in consulting. Alec took the initiative to make a cohort Slack group and introduce himself to everyone. A baseball player from Tennessee. Not your typical robotics boy, I thought. But clearly, he had to be a little nerdy. No one else was eager enough for school to start to make a Slack group. Initially, no one responded to his message, and after a few days, my pity took over. I posted a short introduction to the cohort to see if it would get any traction. Immediately, I received a DM from Alec. Within minutes, my five roomates had assembled in the living room and his social media was being shared on our TV. A stalking session was in full effect, and I knew his life story before I even had the chance to respond to his DM. We messaged back and forth for a bit over the summer. I hoped to get to know him a bit better, but all he wanted to discuss was robotics concepts and CMU. Classic. Eventually, the conversation died out.

When I moved to Pittsburgh, the only people I knew were my two roommates. I was anxious to meet the rest of the cohort. Our first group gathering was the RI Friday social event. I was chatting nervously with some new friends when I spotted a face I had seen on my TV a couple months back hovering above everyone else. He approached our group to introduce himself, and I was immediately attracted to him. But we were classmates, and I didn’t let myself consider the possibility of anything more.

Was it love at first sight?

Alec: Yes, that first day we met in person, I certainly had feelings for her. However, for those who have spent a lot of time with me, you will know that I am a fairly intense individual. With the impending pressures of the program, and my personal expectations for myself, I closed off the possibility of pursuing Sri in any capacity. 

Which is a great time to bring up a story Sri loves to tell about me – the story of selecting our MRSD capstone team. Entering this program, I was a former student-athlete with a BS in biomedical engineering. As such, I knew I may be behind the curve regarding core skills required for the degree. I was entering a world I had not before, which put me in the headspace of being extremely calculated when trying to enter and build a team. Skipping some steps, I found myself in a position of 4 team members who had a balanced skill set of Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science, and in my eyes we needed some Electrical Engineering expertise. There were two final people who wanted to enter our group, Sridevi who was a ME graduate and Atharv Pulapuka with some EE background. In my mind it was such a clear cut decision, let’s go with Atharv! Luckily,  Atharv decided to go for another topic of interest. What I didn’t know at the time was that he allowed me to get to know my future wife much better. 

Sri: No. After the first couple weeks and further conversations with Alec, I decided that he actually hated me. We were going through the stressful time of forming teams. I naturally had found myself drawn to him at first and wanted to be on his team. Alec had already paired up with Solomon, Ishu, and Jiyoon. I was quickly becoming friends with this group, and had no other teaming options. I felt lost and confused at the time because no one wanted me on their team. I had no one to work with and expressed to them that I wanted to join their team. Hoping for an excited response, Alec seemed deeply unimpressed then proceeded to inform me that I would have to go through an interview process with him and the others on his team. I didn’t know they had the authority to do that, but I had no other options and wanted to work with them. After my “interview” at Chipotle, Alec said they were looking for someone with more electrical experience, and my qualifications were not up to their standards. Ishu, Jiyoon, and Solomon came off as more friendly and excited about the potential of working together, but Alec clearly wanted nothing to do with me. My feelings towards Alec were a mixture of fear and annoyance at this point. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to be a part of their team anymore. Unfortunately for them, Atharv decided to pursue other options, and they were stuck with me.

When did we start dating?

Alec: The first semester was quite the grind for me. I found myself working 10 hour days or more, trying to either implement assignments or get up to speed with topics mentioned conversationally throughout my day. Through it all, I found myself working with Sri and Solomon Fenton. This gave me ample time to get to know each of them, and grow closer to them. As the semester dragged on, I started to notice that my original tough-guy, focused attitude towards Sri started to defrost. With it, I tried to give her signs of my interest. I would find more excuses to work on homework with her, try to convince her to do a Chipotle run with me. However, I do not think that these activities revealed my interest in her, largely because they were disguised as work activities, and I was not doing much outside of work socially that first semester. I was really able to show my interest once the first semester came to a close. 

Once the first semester ended, I finally felt free to go out and socialize without the fear of deadlines looming. During this time, Sri and I were able to hangout a lot more. Crucially, there was a night where Sri drove me home from her house during a Pittsburgh snowstorm. This caused us to have to ditch her car on the side of the road, walk to my house, and her having to stay the night. We made a great night out of a hilarious misfortune. From that moment on, I knew that she was someone I needed in my life for a long time. We went our separate ways for winter break following our snowstorm debacle, and the night she returned I asked her to be my girlfriend. 

Sri: Although my feelings of fear and annoyance towards Alec still have not fully dissipated, his personality began to grow on me as we spent more time working together. Eventually, we developed a strong friendship amongst our team, and I found myself attracted to his thoughtful nature and caring persona. I was deeply impressed by his work ethic and his undoubted brilliance. I think we truly became friends one night when we couldn’t stop screaming our ideas over each while trying to figure out the Lucas-Kanade CV assignment together. Our excitement for robotics and our ability to bring enjoyment to any situation when we were together became clear. Working with Alec and the rest of the team made the difficulties and stresses of MRSD feel much lighter. 

We grew closer as the semester progressed, but Alec never let his focus stray from school. I would invite Alec and the team over to my house for study sessions. My roommates got to know th rest of my teammates, but Alec kept his priorities straight. He would never even take his headphones off or say hello to my roommates. Even when we would take some time off on the weekends to go out, Alec stayed in and continued working. My roommates were confused by Alec and scared of his intensity. Slowly, he learned to open up more, and I had the ability to get to know Alec outside of School. As the end of the semester approached, we began spending more time together. As I learned more about Alec, I found myself thinking about him more and more. However, I thought he was way out of my league and nothing would ever come of it. We were on the same team, and I thought there was no way we could ever date anyways. 

However, as soon as the semester ended, we were inseparable. We spent all our time together until we had to part ways to go home for the holidays. We had one quintessential night where we were hanging out at my place until late in the morning, talking and getting to know each other. At around 3 am, I decided I should probably drop him back off at home. Fortunately for us, my car never made it up to Squirrel Hill from Shadyside. There just happened to be a winter snowstorm that night. In Pittsburgh fashion, my car was sliding down a hill, and Alec had to get out and push it off to the side of the road. We walked back to Alec’s apartment in the snow and had a reason to keep hanging out. We stayed in touch over the break, and the day I came back, we started dating. Afterwards, we had to break the news to the rest of the time. Expecting them to be surprised, they knew exactly what was happening. I think our attraction for each other was apparent, and there was nothing we could do to stop it. 

What did the program teach me about the other person (and myself)?

Alec: There are many things that this program taught me about Sri, but my favorite one is to be able to observe her intellect. She is truly very brilliant and has incredible intuition. It was really fun to work with her largely because we have such different work styles. I am slow, methodical, and planning. I have to ponder deeply before making a move, to understand why I did something at the fundamental level. Sri, however, is phenomenal at interpolating a lack of information and making great decisions even under the presence of low guidance. This make a great problem solver and it allows her to come up with creative solutions to problems (that often work) even if there is no clear reason (at least to me) as to why they work. The result of this is that she wins a lot of arguments. 

Sri: Working with Alec on all our school work meant we spent all our time together. I was able to learn so much about him very quickly as well as about myself. Alec truly has so many amazing qualities that were evident to me in the program. There are very few people who go through MRSD that went from being a D1 athlete doing biomedical engineering. Alec took his passion for robotics and taught himself to code before coming to MRSD. His ability to excel so quickly in a field he knew nothing about is deeply impressive. But beyond his technical expertise and intelligence, Alec selflessfly wants to help others and see them succeed as well. I personally could not have made it through MRSD without Alec’s support and guidance. Whether I was confused about a concept and needed him to explain it to me or I was feeling stressed about our project and needed his emotional support, he was always there to lead with his caring and thoughtful character.

How have we been since MRSD?

Alec: Sri and I have been great! We have since moved to Falls Church, VA and are thoroughly enjoying the area. It has given us the ability to explore the monuments, museums, and local hiking trails. We have also been to a couple weddings of local friends, and even took a vacation to Mexico! It is an exciting next year ahead, as we look forward to wedding planning. I am excited for what’s to come and I’m eternally grateful to MRSD for bringing Sri and I together, 

Sri: We have been amazing! We moved to a suburb of Washington D.C. after graduation for work and have been settling in to our new lives here. We’ve been finding fun ways to fill our free time now that that’s something we actually have. We’ve been enjoying exploring the D.C. attractions, making new friends, going hiking, and taking fun trips. Although we do really miss Pittsburgh, we love living here. We also are enjoying the wedding planning process and looking forward to getting married next year!