In 2003, Prof. Lee Humphreys ’99, communication, and her friends walked into a Philadelphia bar. Standing across from them, a “very tall guy,” as Humphreys recalled, turned, looked at her and said, “Hey.” Prof. Jeff Niederdeppe, communication — the “very tall guy” in question — said Humphreys “beamed back, smiling,” and returned his greeting.
The couple has been together ever since.
“We started talking on the phone and had some mutual friends that would, on weekends, invite a bunch of people to hang out, so we would use that as an excuse to meet up,” said Niederdeppe. “But we started spending every other weekend [together].”
With a laugh, Humphreys shared with The Sun that she later discovered Niederdeppe’s greeting at the bar — which she happily reciprocated — was actually meant for her friends, who Niederdeppe knew through the master’s program at the University of Pennsylvania. Humphreys was a first-year master’s student, her friends were a year older and Niederdeppe had just completed the program.
Humphreys called the ironic moment of miscommunication between the two soon-to-be communication professors “wonderful” and said it launched the rest of their relationship.
The couple began a long-distance relationship — Humphreys completing her master’s at UPenn and Niederdeppe working in North Carolina. They lived seven hours apart for one year before they both decided to apply to the same Ph.D. program back at UPenn.
Both Humphreys and Niederdeppe were accepted and promptly moved in together, decreasing their distance from seven hours to zero.
“We liked the program, we liked Philadelphia, we liked each other,” Niederdeppe began, and Humphreys, finishing his sentence, said, “It worked out well.”
Though living together, the young couple maintained some distance while at school.
“I refused to sit next to him in any classroom or anything because I didn't want anyone, [like] our faculty, to know that we were dating or anything like that,” Humphreys said with a smile. However, she admitted that the administrative assistants in the Ph.D. program probably knew about their relationship anyway.
Eventually, the not-so-inconspicuous couple got engaged and married while still at UPenn and happily invited some faculty members to their wedding. 19 years later, the pair are still “partners in everything,” Humphreys said.
Humphreys and Niederdeppe have shared many milestones. They said they supported each other through their Ph.D. dissertations, both began working at Cornell in 2008, submitted their tenure dossiers together, applied for full professorship at the same time and had two children with whom they live an “incredible” life with in Ithaca.
Though they are a part of the same department at Cornell, Humphreys and Niederdeppe said they do not intersect much at work, aside from a panel they organized with other members of the communication department in 2023 and their morning carpool.
Humphreys recalled her early days at Cornell, a time when walking across campus with her husband caused mayhem.
“When we were assistant professors and we had a little bit more time, we would occasionally go get a coffee … and we would occasionally hold hands, and you could see students be like, ‘Oh scandalous!’ and ‘Oh my!’” Humphreys said while Niederdeppe laughed with her. “People would do double takes … and I got a good chuckle out of it.”
Now, as full professors — and with Humphreys as a chair of the Department of Communication — finding time to spend together during the day is difficult. The pair say that they are “schedule people,” who diligently document their packed lives on Microsoft Outlook.
Despite their busy schedules, Humphreys and Niederdeppe enjoy spending time with their kids after work, going to the gym and having weekly date nights.
The couple began their weekly dates because of their friend, the late Prof. Kathy Berggren ’90 MAT ’93, applied economics and management, who said her weekly date nights with her husband were “super important.” Berggren died in 2014, and Humphreys and Niederdeppe have continued her weekly date night tradition to honor her ever since.
The couple said it’s “special” to share a life at Cornell together, where they feel “supported,” “connected” and continue to share milestones.
“Having a partner who [I] so deeply respect and admire as a colleague, but also as someone I eat pizza with and have a beer with … that partnership is the most rewarding thing for me,” Humphreys said. “It's kind of amazing to be able to share both of those elements.”
