Amanda and Tim first met as trumpets in the Notre Dame marching band in 2012. Though she was a freshman and he was a senior, they became friends by the end of the year and stayed in touch after he graduated. Over the next few years they developed a close friendship, leaning on each other through the highs and lows of their 20s.

In 2019, Tim embarked on a solo road trip across the country and made one of his first stops in Austin, where Amanda was in graduate school. During that visit they began to realize they had romantic feelings beyond their Platonic love for reach other, and as Tim continued on his road trip these developed and blossomed.

Over the next couple of years they traveled to visit each other, in Austin, in Boise where Tim lived, and in other fun locations like Denver and Kansas City for weekend getaways.

When Amanda finished her PhD in June of 2021, she accepted a postdoc position in Belgium, and Tim went with her. Tim was able to work remotely and luckily had some flexibility in his work schedule to deal with the time zone differences. After that they moved to St. Louis where Amanda had a postdoc at Washington University while Tim continued to work remotely.

In the summer of 2023 Tim proposed by the St. Croix river in Amanda’s home state of Minnesota.

They now reside in Pittsburgh where Amanda is a professor at Pitt. The academic world is full of unknowns, but they have one certainty: wherever the road takes them next, it will take them together.