Region:
Europe
Scholar Date:
2010 to 2011
Ingrid Rushfeldt Krüger, 23, was born in the USA when her father, a fighter pilot with the Royal Norwegian Air Force, was stationed in Texas, but she was raised in Norway by her Norwegian parents. Ingrid soon learned to appreciate the majestic nature of the Nordic countries, and with that came an urge to fight for the preservation of what we have left of wildlife and nature. She has been an active member of Friends of the Earth since 2004, and at the age of 17 this passion also led to the founding of a local division of Norway’s biggest environmental organization for youth in her hometown.
Accepted as a medical student at The Norwegian University of Science and Technology at Trondheim in 2005, she still could not let go of her passion for the environment, and was accepted at the medical students’ research program with a project concerning an environmental toxin. Still, her interests range from environmental issues and biology in general to neuroscience, baromedicine, and photography. After her first year at medical school Ingrid traveled to Nairobi, Kenya where she worked as a volunteer helping out at basic health clinics in the Nairobi slums. The events she witnessed there changed her forever.
At the age of 21 Ingrid finally found her way to life underwater. It was a natural development of her passion for wildlife in general, and also the challenge of exploring an environment that humans are not evolved to survive in. She took her basic diving license with the university’s diving group in 2007, as well as her further training (CMAS**) the next year. As a result of her work as Head of Social Program in the university’s diving group she was elected leader the following year. Meanwhile, as a diver she was astonished by the beauty and complexity of life underwater and wished to develop her knowledge and skills as a diver even more. As a result she took her CMAS Marine Biology Diver and GUE Fundamentals course in 2009 and has just been requested to stand for election to the National Board of the Norwegian Diving Federation.
At the present Ingrid is a fourth year medical student, a student researcher, licensed diver, amateur photographer, and an environmentalist, and with the Scholarship she wishes to explore all of these roles and find out which of them she can develop to a point where they will be useful beyond her own existence. “What if I could help revolutionize the way we seek to prevent decompression sickness, by developing a pill that alters the inner lining of our blood vessels?”
