Michael grew up in Senftenberg, Germany with his parents, Ute & Ernst, and his sister Sarah. When it came time to choose where to study abroad, Michael wanted to work on his English and chose Ireland for a 6 month research internship.

Kate grew up in Jupiter, Florida with her parents Mona & Steve, and three siblings Steve, Tess, and Matt. The birth of Kate's first nephew Rían drew her to Ireland, where she moved to start a master's degree and be close to her sister and her growing family!

Kate & Michael met in October 2017 in Limerick, Ireland at the house of Kate's friend Haiyang and Michael's new friend Feng. Kate had recently started her PhD and Michael had started his internship at the same university only a few weeks before. We hit it off right away and talked the entire party, to the exasperation of any of our other friends who tried to get our attention.