NEW YORK — Last year, Jelena Kovacevic became the new dean of New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering. She is the first woman to lead the institution in its 164-year history.
“I hope my appointment shows both girls and boys what they can do in a STEM field,” said Kovacevic, whose research involves fields as varied as traffic management and medicine, but who is also committed to gender parity at Tandon. “Our incoming class was 43 percent women, which is twice the national average,” she said. “My goal is to make it 51 percent.”
Kovacevic, 56, is from Belgrade, Serbia. Before the NYU gig, she was on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh for 15 years. For much of that time, she commuted from New York, spending weekends on the Upper West Side, where she lives with her husband, Giovanni Pacifici, 61, who works for IBM. Their daughter, Danica Pacifici, is about to graduate with a master of science in nursing from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
DECAF AND PANCAKES: I don’t set an alarm. During the week, I get up at 6, and on Sundays, I aim for 8, but my internal clock usually wakes me before that. I grew up drinking strong Turkish coffee, but I switched to decaf when I was pregnant and never went back. I read The New York Times with my coffee. I savor the magazine. Breakfast is simple — it’s oatmeal. When my daughter visits, Giovanni fixes pancakes. He’s the cook in the house. I don’t know how he makes them, but they are out of this world.
RUNNING IN CIRCLES: We live a block from Central Park, so we run the inner loop together. It’s about 4 miles, and it takes us about an hour. I’ve run in five New York City marathons, but I stopped because I don’t have time to train for them. Giovanni has to slow down so I can keep up with him. This is our time to talk about anything and everything — our work, our daughter, the news and even NPR podcasts — one recent one was Fresh Air’s “The ‘Strange Science’ Behind the Big Business of Energy Recovery.”
LUNCH IS CASUAL: Sometimes we eat together, and sometimes we don’t. I often go across the street to Lenwich. I don’t really like lettuce, so I get a kale or spinach salad, which has a little more bite. I add chicken and veggies, usually mushrooms. We also get whole-wheat bagels at H & H.
PING: During the week, I sometimes don’t get home until 9. I usually spend Sunday afternoons from 1 to 6 preparing for the coming week. I used to do my work on the couch, but two years ago we combined two apartments and created an office. It’s cozy, light and airy, and it doesn’t have much furniture. There’s a table that’s divided in half where Giovanni and I sit opposite each other. We ping each other. I really enjoy this time because I can concentrate and reflect.
MOTHER/DAUGHTER THINGS: I named my daughter for my grandmother. Danica means “morning star” in Serbian, and she shines all the time. When she’s in town, I clear my schedule so we can do mother/daughter things together. Sometimes we get manicure-pedicures at a place just across the street called Spa Bene. I like Wicked, which is a dark color, for my feet and something white and light for my fingernails. Danica is much more adventurous — she usually gets two different colors on feet and hands and sometimes they match her nursing scrubs. When we have time, we go to Uptown Pilates on 72nd between Columbus and Amsterdam. I love Pilates because I feel energized after it, and I have gotten stronger over the years doing it.
CHOP CHOP: It was Danica who got us into stir-frying, so Giovanni and I walk to Whole Foods, where we shop for food for the week. When we come home, we chop all the veggies and refrigerate them in plastic containers. It doesn’t take long to do, and it’s as close as I get to cooking. Stir-fry is convenient — it cooks in no time, it’s easy to add tofu and salmon, and it’s just what I want when I come home from the office late.
REGULARS: We go across the street to Lokal, a Mediterranean restaurant. During football season, we like to sit at the bar and watch the games. If we stay home, we watch Netflix. We’re into “The Good Wife.” We started with Season One, and we’ve made it to Season Three. It’s going fast, because we watch a couple of episodes every Sunday.
EASY TO SLEEP: By 10:30, I’m tired, but not as tired as I am during the week. I don’t read in bed or do any other tasks in the bedroom because we reserve that space for sleeping. Most often, I fall asleep as soon as I close my eyes.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.