Hearts at Harris: It's a Forever Thing ... with UChicago

Emily Perish and Zach Honoroff, both MPP’16, became friends after meeting in 2014 during Math Camp, the three-week immersion into algebra, applied mathematics, and calculus that prepares students for Harris’ challenging Core Curriculum.

They started spending a lot of time together right away, but having just started school, neither of them was looking to jump into a relationship.

“We were like, ‘No, we're friends, we're friends, we're friends,’” Zach recalls.

The two continued studying together through their first semester at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. Their favorite place to meet up for morning study sessions was Plein Air, located on the University’s Hyde Park campus next door to the historic Robie House. With its French-inspired menu and European aesthetic, it wasn’t a bad spot for an early morning study session, except for one thing: Zach isn’t a morning person—never has been.

“Emily got me to get up super early to meet her for morning coffee, studying, homework, and problem-set sessions, which I would never do,” Zach said. “And looking back on it, I probably only did it because she was inviting me.”

And for every early bird, there’s a night owl. Emily, who likes to get up early and is “very good at preserving the evening,” would sit with Zach at the library late into the night.

“That was an early sign,” he said.

Eventually, it became pretty clear to both of them that they were dealing with more than a friendship, and they started dating in early 2015.

“Looking back—and I'm sure this is true for other couples that meet, not just at Harris, but anywhere during life or school transitions—you're meeting more like-minded people, and you already have a baseline of shared interests,” Emily said. “So, it probably makes sense that our relationship happened the way it did.”

Their like-mindedness and shared interests have carried them into their professional lives, as well. Since graduating from Harris, both Emily and Zach have continued working on projects affiliated with their alma mater. Emily has been leading work to improve healthcare delivery for patients with complex medical and social needs with David Meltzer, Professor in the Department of Medicine, and affiliated faculty at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics. Zach has worked, now as an Associate Director, at the Crime Lab in New York, Chicago, and New York (again), where the couple now live and work remotely, together, in their new Brooklyn brownstone.

This summer they’ll be married here in Chicago, with a fancy pizza dinner celebration at MiddleBrow in the Logan Square neighborhood to follow.

The engagement itself, however, happened in Hyde Park during peak-COVID-times last summer, near Emily’s old apartment on Lake Shore Drive, where Zach would walk her back to after late nights at the library or out with friends. There was one bench in particular that they always ended up sitting on so they could finish their seemingly never-ending conversations.

After COVID resulted in not one, but two canceled trips abroad, which is when they theoretically would have gotten engaged, Zach thought, “Why don't we go back to our roots?”

Zach planned a tennis match on the courts near Emily’s old apartment, and after their game, they walked over to that bench, the bench, where Zach officially proposed.

“Harris has played a huge role, clearly, in the trajectory of our personal and professional lives,” Emily said, reflecting on that day last summer ago, everything that led up to their engagement, and all that’s yet to come.

“It's funny you don't expect that,” Zach echoed.

Emily’s theory on base-level compatibility amongst students, particularly graduate students, has boded well for the love lives of Harris students and alumni over the years. There are enough couples’ success stories to have kept the Hearts at Harris feature going strong since 2019, after all.

Now, let’s meet Aida Pacheco-Applegate and David Applegate, both MPP’15, who also met as Harris students, one year before Emily and Zach, also after having attended Math Camp together (this is a theme).

“I needed Math Camp probably a little more than others,” David said. “I definitely needed it more than Aida did.”

The couple started interacting more and more during the second quarter of their first year at Harris, during microeconomics class with Professor Don Coursey. 

“Even though Aida has an economics background, I actually ended up getting a better grade than her, and I couldn't even add two plus two together,” David said. “So that's the first time we really interacted. There was no ‘aha moment,’ necessarily. It just slowly evolved through the winter and spring quarter, and then after that too.”

David hails from the Chicago suburbs, but Aida, who is originally from Peru, had no intentions of staying in Chicago beyond her two years at Harris.

“I came here to get my Master's in Public Policy,” Aida said. “My goal was to finish my Master's, go back to Peru, and work in government or something like that. I never thought I was going to meet my husband. As David said, it happened organically.”

Aida’s plan to move back to Peru changed a little after meeting David. Following their graduation in 2015, Aida found a job she still enjoys at Chapin Hall, a research institution at the University of Chicago that advocates for families and youth across all levels of government, non-profit institutions, and beyond. David accepted a role working for Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and then went on to work for The Kennedy Forum before starting his current position at Milliman as a health care policy consultant. The two were married less than a day after the Chicago Cubs beat the Cleveland Indians in the 2016 World Series (David’s family are big Cubs fans).

Beginning in August of 2021, Aida and David started working together on campus as Resident Heads. Working from home together now means working from the University of Chicago dorms. Together, they oversee a “house” of 100 students.

“We don't have kids yet, so it's very interesting to just hang out with these students,” Aida said. “They have all kinds of fresh ideas. They are funny. And we hang out with them.”

One of the expectations of being a Resident Head is that you eat meals with the students in the dining hall. Aside from keeping the couple connected to the University that brought them together in the first place, co-working as Resident Heads has helped Aida and David get to know each other in a new capacity, with an eye to their future together.

“I have been able to see David in this new role, acting as a mentor for these kids,” Aida said. “It’s the first time that I've watched him interacting with younger people, with students. Being a mentor. I imagined, ‘Oh, David is going to be great doing this,’ but then I got to see it, and he is great at it. And I really like that.”

“And likewise with Aida,” David said. “Aida's a big event planner, and she likes to bake and cook…I knew that her skills with organizing events and activities and stuff like that would go over well with the students. And it has, as expected, gone over well.”

Aida and David. Emily and Zach. Like the number of decimals in pi, like a line graph with no limit, it appears the possibilities from Math Camp are never-ending.