In memory of Menno Knetsch
On Sunday 26 November 2017, our dear colleague and friend Menno Knetsch passed away at the age of 50. Menno was a passionate biologist and biochemist. He joined Maastricht University in 2001, working in biomedical research and education. Soon thereafter, Menno started to teach at the University College Maastricht (UCM). Menno was coauthor on over 50 scientific papers, but will be most remembered as a passionate educator.
For the past eight years, Menno was part of the core team building up Sciences at Maastricht University in general and the Maastricht Science Programme (MSP) in particular. He was at the basis of many of the ideas, concepts and modules which have shaped MSP over the past years. Menno was a true mentor to his students, always making time to help and teach. In the first year of MSP, before there was a lot of staff, Menno was “the MSP biologist”, and until very recently he was still very active as academic advisor, teacher and member of the MSP Board of Examiners. Many alumni and current students at Maastricht University have been in the classes of Menno in biology and biobased materials. He was a gifted teacher and has helped shape the future of many of our students. In the past three years, Menno has been the driving force behind the building up of new master's education at Maastricht University in Biobased Materials and more recently in Systems Biology. In this way he has been able to translate his creative didactic ideas into innovative educational programmes of high quality.
In Menno we lose a gentle, warm and much loved colleague: a true support pillar that would always reassure that “everything would be ok”. Menno will be terribly missed by the entire Maastricht academic community.
We wish his family a lot of strength to cope with this large loss.
Thomas Cleij
Dean Sciences
