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Dear Mercatorians,
We are Max and Joanna, a German and Polish dynamic duo. While Joanna also responds to a shorter form of her name - Aska or Asia - (yes, Polish names work in mysterious ways :-)), Max goes by... Max. However, he is the owner of a very northern German second name - Folkert.

Our story takes you back to the rainy (duh!) Bremen fall of 2001, when the Jacobs student body consisted of ca. 120 young souls wandering around what felt like an abandoned campus, trying to bring more life to it. That's where we met! And yes... you're right in thinking that this makes us quite old :-). Back then Max's major was EECS, Joanna studied psychology. After graduation we went to Amsterdam to study some more and spent two great years there. We also got married in Amsterdam, four years ago (which is a funny story we'd gladly tell if you want to know).

After our brief affair with Amsterdam, Max started his PhD in Robotics here at Jacobs and has been at it for the last four years, building all kinds of robots that one day may or may not take over the planet :-). Joanna's a PhD student too, at Uni Oldenburg, but luckily for the planet, has nothing to do with robots. She took a turn towards language learning, teaching methods and applied linguistics, which was a great decision. But in her heart she's still a psychologist, who craves experimental design. You are right to conclude that we're both a little nerdy :-).

That's us! Stop by for a visit - we would love to get to know you better. You can find us in C Block. We'll probably be cooking, watching some sci-fi or crime shows, listening to some music, or better yet, talking to you!