The current College Masters of Mercator College are Aimee, Nicole and Vikram Unnithan.

Vikram was born in India to a Dutch mother and an Indian father. After spending his youth in India, he received his education in the Netherlands and the Republic of Ireland. After a brief career as Staff Geophysicist at an Oil Consultancy in the UK, he joined Jacobs University - then still IUB - in April 2004 as Assistant Professor of Geosciences in the School of Engineering and Science.

Nicole is German, born in the southern part of the country, namely Pfalz (Palatinate in English), a place probably most popular for its people's enormous interest in food and wine production. She's a historian with a Master's degree from the University of Heidelberg and is currently finishing her doctoral thesis in heritage studies. Aimee was born on 16th February 2010 and is the latest addition to the Unnithan Family.

Both of them have shared the experience of living abroad and this, together with their multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural background, is one of their most important assets in the position they're occupying.

And now a few words from our college masters.

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We are quite new to the Mercator family. Mandy and Klaus Boehnke, the previous college masters handed over this responsible job to us at the start of Spring 2007. They were the founder college masters of Mercator College and in many ways pioneers of the International University Bremen college life.

Frankly, our friends and colleagues thought we were crazy to take up this position. The additional work, the hassle of dealing with issues, problems, the parties, the loud noise, just to mention a few chores that accompany such a position. However, our friends do know that we have quite a lot of experience dealing with students of all ages and from different parts of the world. So they knew we were up for the challenge. Based on our experience over the past few months, the rewards of being a college master are definitely not in the administrative chores or the disciplinary role that we have to unfortunately adopt but rather in getting to know wonderful people from nearly all corners of the globe. The possibility to learn and understand other cultures, to share both the fun and sad times with such a young, energetic and creative community are the main rewards of the college master position. This is what I presume Mandy and Klaus Boehnke refer to as a wonderful period of personal growth during their tenure.

Our hope and aspirations for the forthcoming years is to continue to build on the solid foundations of the Boehnke era. The college is still in a growth phase and we would like to secure Mercator's interests for the next five years. To expand to become one of the mature college's of Jacob University, have a fixed budget and improve the facilities and quality of life in the colleges. We am confident that with the help and support of our very capable College Office Manager, Sammy Johnson and his student team, and our deligent Resident Associates, Mercator will continue to grow and flourish.

We hope that Mercator remains to be a safe home for our students. A place where one feels at home, is comfortable, warm and safe. Mercator should provide you with the opportunity to expand your horizon socially, culturally and academically. It should also be a place where you can enjoy fun times, to celebrate new achievements and sometimes mourn over tough times. Living together with so many different personalities is also quite demanding and will at times stretch your patience. It is important to be able to learn to live together with your fellow students and to feel responsible for Mercator. The college reflects its inhabitants, so each one of you have a small but significant part in keeping Mercator as a happy and pleasant place for everyone - let us all work together to keep it this way.

Nicole & Vikram Unnithan

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