Engineering seniors, Ana Islamova ChE’23 and Logan Villano ME’23, share an intimate dialogue of how they met at the Cooper Union, survived online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, opened a steady online business, and more. 

L: Ana and I met in January 2020, our second semester at Cooper, when an event had extra pizza and Sue (our mutual friend) saw me in the hallway. Ana and Sue offered me pizza in exchange for trying a gummy pickle. I was not expecting it to actually be pickle flavored. It was awful. 

A: We knew it was awful, that was the point. My friends and I had some spare pizza that we couldn’t let go to waste and there was no one else around but Logan. I didn’t even know his name at the time.

L: After that we became friends and started hanging out on our breaks and after class. We quickly became close. Closer than I had to anyone else I’d met at Cooper so far and right when I realized I had feelings, this thing called Covid-19 sent us home for a week. Great! Free week off! No. When it was announced that we wouldn’t be back at least until next semester (yeah that didn’t happen) we started to chat on zoom every night. We would watch shows, play games, and stay up past 1:00am together most nights. 

A: It’s hard to stay connected to friends when you’re not allowed to leave the house. Logan was one of the few people who I talked to everyday and who could deal with my quarantine craziness. It never felt like we had nothing to do because just talking to each other was more than enough.

L: Later in the semester, when we settled into the swing of things with online learning (as much as you can) we planned a time to meet in person. I drove from my place in Long Island out to her place in Brooklyn to see each other in person again. We had a great time and I, like an idiot, did not ask her out. When I got home and we called again that night, she pointed that out and that’s when we started dating. 

A: I’m honestly surprised he didn’t ask sooner. He spent more time driving that day than we spent together. There was this great moment too when we were at the beach, sitting in a gazebo and staring out into the ocean. It was just the two of us… and I didn’t even get a peck on the cheek.

L: During our first full semester online, to keep from going stir crazy, I would spend part of each week at my home in Long Island, my grandfather’s apartment in Queens, and then Ana’s apartment in Brooklyn. Through the academic year our boredom led us to begin planning a trip. We joked about Disney World for our one-year anniversary, but never actually expected it to happen. I said I would design some ears to 3D print for Ana to wear. That’s when she said something dreadful. “You should wear ears too!”

A: It took some time convincing our parents to let us travel to Florida in the middle of a pandemic, but they came around. Logan designed a different set of ears for me for each theme park based on what I wanted. I added rhinestones around the edges and glued them onto headbands with bows. I might be a little biased, but I think I had the best ears in the whole park.

L: There was no way I was going to walk around in a headband, but I do like hats. I designed ears that would clip onto baseball hats. She thought we should sell them, and I didn’t think much would come of the idea, but we opened our online shop we had to stop taking requests after 24 hours because we couldn’t keep up. We even had to order new 3D printers. We paid for Disney before we got there. 

A: Our office has a little 3D printer farm now with all our packing supplies and tools. We go through so much filament every week that we’ve collected a massive box of just scraps in one year. I accidently dropped a pair of tweezers in it and have yet to find them. We’re currently doing an independent study with one of our lab techs, Doug Thornhill, to figure out how to recycle all of it. Maybe when we get through it all, I’ll finally get my tweezers back.

L: When we finally returned to in-person learning Fall of 2021, we split our time between our two apartments and had lunch together daily. We later moved in together with our pet bird, Tima, and have since adopted another named Pesto. We work together, help each other learn, and even took some of the same classes at Cooper. 

A: I take classes that sound interesting. Some of them just also happen to be mechanical engineering classes. I never imagined myself being so interested in 3D computer design and fabrication, but I guess some of Logan’s MechE rants are rubbing off on me. 

L: Since then, we’ve gone on many new adventures together, both far from home (Washington DC, Lake George, Boston, Dominican Republic, Italy, Spain) and right here in the city (Broadway shows, ballets, museums). 

Last year, we decided we wanted to go to Disneyland over winter break. We planned our new trip while I planned something else… On our first day, in a beautiful spot in Avengers Campus while she was decked out in Scarlet Witch merch (and ears of course), and I dressed similarly in Iron man merch. I told her I wanted to take pictures and we found one of the photographers to do so. I then told Ana I saw Scarlet Witch, she turned around, and I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me. 

A: I had an inkling before we left that he was planning something, but it still caught me off guard. I had the whole day planned out and his stopping for photos threw off our entire schedule. Not to mention he lied about seeing Scarlet Witch. I suppose that I could forgive him though. We have a way to go before we start wedding planning though. Need to finish our Master’s first. 

Ana and Logan continue to support each other in their academic and extracurricular pursuits. They graduate this Spring 2023 Semester, Ana completing her degree in Chemical Engineering and Logan completing his degree in Mechanical Engineering. They were both accepted into the Cooper Union Master’s Program advancing their careers in engineering together.