From MESA Days to Matrimoney
MESA turns 55 this year and we want to share all the MESA stories, perspectives and achievements we can. For Valentine’s Day, here’s a love story.
Like many MESA stories, it all began with MESA Days.
Jennifer Barrietos, a high school senior, was competing in the prosthetic arm competition. Luis Salazar, a freshman at UC Irvine and MESA student staffer was a prosthetic arm competition judge. Jennifer and her team had been kicking, uh, arms, and taking names in the contest so far. That day, they ended up with a nearly flawless score.
“He was the only one who didn’t give us a perfect score,” Jennifer huffed.
(Fun fact, Jennifer and her team went on to win nationals in the prosthetic arm and her future in biomedical engineering was born).
Fast forward one year. Jennifer, now a freshman at UCI, spotted Luis at a bonfire. She marched straight up to him and said: “I remember you! You’re that judge!”
“His explanation was, ‘I needed to humble you guys.’” (Cue eyeroll)
So a competition quibble transformed that encounter into a great working friendship – again with some help from MESA.
As MESA student advisors, the two travelled around the area teaching high school students how to master the prosthetic arm competition. Countless hours driving to Imperial Valley and other metro areas gave them the time and space to get to know each other well.
“It started as a friendship and turns out we worked really well together.” (Doesn’t matter who we quote, they both said the EXACT same thing.)
After about a year of late night group study sessions, and long days of planning and hosting MESA Day competitions, Luis asked: ‘Do you want to be my girlfriend?’
(She said yes, obvi).
“He was such a gentleman. He even set up a meeting with Marvin and Nicole (our MESA directors at UCI) to tell them we were dating, like they were my mom and dad.”
To add to the charming serendipity, Jennifer and Luis discovered they grew up mere blocks from each other in Compton.
“When I first brought her to family functions, people would recognize her and say ‘you’re that girl who used to walk everywhere in the neighborhood with your mom.’ It’s crazy we never met when we were younger.”
Behind this budding love story though, Jennifer and Luis were putting in some serious work. As biomed and mechanical engineering majors, respectively, they had tough courseloads and struggled with imposter syndrome like many first generation college-goers.
“MESA was the reason I became an engineer. I wanted more from life and this was my route,” Luis said.
They leaned on each other to graduate and continued to date when Luis lived out of state for a year for a job with General Motors.
“I fell for her. I saw how ambitious and hardworking she was, and it shows up even more in how much she volunteers and gives back to the community,” Luis said.
Luis moved back to California and the couple quickly added fur babies to the mix. A chihuahua dachshund mix named Cinnamon, followed by Sparta, a Russell Terrier.
A few years later Luis popped the question during a hike on Catalina Island.
(She said yes again, of course).
They tied the knot in 2022 and if all of that weren’t cute enough, they both now work at Terumo Neuro, a medical equipment manufacturing company, she as a senior engineer in new product development and he as a senior R&D engineer. Jennifer is also a MESA Industry Advisory Board member.
“I owe a lot to MESA for the life I have now. It is the reason we know each other. It all started with MESA.”
Do you have a MESA love story to share? Let us know!
