The scientist and the mechanic
MIT smitten with pair of Newark sweethearts
Wednesday, February 13, 2002
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- They are a familiar sight here on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, this young couple from Newark's Ironbound.
You can't miss Al , all 6-6 and 310 pounds of him. Everyone likes to see him at dorm parties, because when he's around, no one acts up.
"He's everybody's favorite bouncer. He's gentle, but he doesn't look it," says Maryann . His girlfriend. Well, more than girlfriend.
Maryann, with her long, shag-cut hair and her penchant for low-cut tops and leather coats -- when the weather turns warmer, she'll go back to the bare-midriff look -- stands out, too, amongst the cerebral denizens of this corner of Cambridge.
She doesn't look like a research scientist, but that's precisely what she is. An expert on a soil-based fungus that causes liver cancer among peoples in the Third World, especially China, Mexico and sub-Saharan Africa.
Her work on the carcinogen already has aided in the efforts to eradicate the fungus and could provide insights into how certain proteins trigger cancer.
She is, typically, modest. "I know a lot about a small piece of the picture," says Maryann.
Next week, Maryann , who grew up on Napoleon Street in Newark and still calls Down Neck home, will receive her doctoral degree in bioengineering from MIT, completing 10 years of study that began when she entered the institute just weeks after her graduation from Newark's Science High as a Star-Ledger Scholar.
"I never thought I'd get this far," says Maryann. "I was lost when I got here."
Al will be with her next week, as he has been for most of the time she spent at MIT. Then, after they finish their jobs as resident counselors for undergraduates at the East Campus dorm, they'll be off on a tour of research institutes and pharmaceutical companies that have been recruiting Maryann.
"I'm not sure exactly where I'll end up, but I think I'd like to stay in New Jersey," says Maryann, whose grandmothers were both cleaning women from Poland who eventually found jobs as janitors at East Side High School in Newark.
Al, 31, and Maryann, 28, figure they'll get married at the end of the year, make a little money, buy a house and raise a family.
"And I want to make sure Al gets the chance to go to school," says Maryann. AL dropped out of East Side nearly 15 years ago, although he did eventually earn an equivalency diploma.
They met when he was 17 and she was 14. He and a group of friends were watching a girls softball game at a field Down Neck. Maryann was up at bat and got beaned. When she came to, she found herself looking up into the very worried -- but oh so interesting -- eyes of a guy she would later learn was Al.
"For some reason, he was really concerned," she says. "I liked that."
But Maryann was headed for a place like MIT, and Al was looking for a job as a mechanic. When she left Newark, they didn't know whether they'd see each other again.
"I didn't find anybody at all like Al here," says Maryann.
"There was nobody like her in Newark," says Al.
So, after two years, Al left Newark and joined Maryann in Cambridge. He got a job as a mechanic, first with Greyhound Lines, then with CSX, the freight train line. He became part of the MIT scene, even attending her classes.
"He could answer questions a lot of my classmates couldn't," says Maryann. "Al's very smart -- he just never had the opportunities a lot of kids around here did."
When Maryann became a graduate student, Al discovered a new opportunity at MIT. As a dorm counselor, he's been available to perform all manner of services, and not just those of a bouncer at parties.
"Whenever anything's broken, the students bring it to Al," says Maryann. "He can fix anything."
Including, apparently, bad attitudes. Al says he's got a special touch with MIT undergraduates who come to him complaining about the pressure.
"You know, you get kids here talking about how terrible their lives are and the pressure they're under and they wonder why they're sticking it out," he says.
"I tell them what it's like to get up early on a cold morning and get under a dirty, greasy train that's got to be pulled apart. I tell them what an incredible opportunity they have just being here.
"Gives them a different perspective on life."
After she earns her degree, she and Al will go back to Newark, at least for a while. Al wants to stay in the city; Maryann thinks about a suburban house with lots of room for the kids to play.
Well, they'll talk about it. But they both do want kids.
"They'll understand the value of education," says Maryann.
"And hard work," says Al.
