Scholar Bio
The 2010 European Rolex Scholar
Ingrid Rushfeldt Krüger (23) was born in the USA when her parents were stationed in Texas, her father being a fighter pilot with the Royal Norwegian Air Force.
However, Ingrid was raised in Norway where she learned to appreciate the majestic nature of the Nordic countries – and with that came an urge to fight for the preservation 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 led her to establish in her home town, a division of Norway’s biggest environmental organisation for youth.
Accepted as a medical student at The Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim in 2005, she still could not let go of her passion for the environment, and was accepted at the medical students’ research programme with a project concerning an environmental toxin. Ingrid’s 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 under water. It wasn’t just a natural development of her passion for wildlife in general that brought her under water, but also the challenge of exploring an environment that humans are not evolved to survive in.
Ingrid took her basic diving license with the university’s diving group in 2007, as well as her further training (CMAS**) the following year. As a result of her work as Head of the Social Programme in the university’s diving group – she was elected leader the following year!
As a diver Ingrid was astonished by the beauty and complexity of life under water and wished to develop her knowledge and skills as a diver even more. As a result she conducted 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?”
The 2009 European Rolex Scholar
Filip, now 21 years old, was born in the 1000-year-old Polish seaport city of Gdansk. Since early childhood he has been keenly interested in sciences, logical thinking and the world. At age 10 he was part of a team who qualified to the International Finals of the Odyssey of the Mind” – a competition of creative thinking – finishing in third place.
Water, he says has always played an important role in his life spending most of his childhood holidays at the shore where he first encountered scuba divers and became fascinated with their strange equipment and longing for his first breath underwater.
At High School Filip developed his interest in computer programming which led to being chosen four times for the Polish National Team for International Olympiad in Informatics, winning the competition in Mexico in 2006. It was however when Filip moved to the University of Warsaw that his opportunities to pursue his fascination with diving improved and he joined the local Diving Club.
Still highly interested in computer programming Filip joined with two other Faculty students to form a team that entered and won on two separate occasions the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest in Tokyo, Japan. Since this he has focused more on tutoring other students and teams in computer programming.
Filip says that these competitions which he has entered and won allowed him to travel and dive in different countries and used these opportunities to explore on his own without others as he feels this is the only way to discover the true nature of the country and it’s people. Last year Filip completed an internship with Google in New York City and helped to develop one of their highly distributed data storage and retrieval systems. He chose this internship among others as it would place him closer to the ocean and allow him to continue to dive.
Currently qualified as a PADI Divemaster and Nitrox qualified with more than 200 dives under his belt, Filip helps to instruct handicapped divers and teaches freediving in his spare time.
Filip’s dream is to make a significant contribution to diver safety by re-writing decompression schedules and designing better and more efficient dive computer software.
The 2008 European Rolex Scholar
Born and raised below sea level in the Netherlands, Eline Juliette Feenstra (22), has been selected as the European Rolex Scholar for 2008/2009.
At the moment Eline is majoring in Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam, and will be awarded her undergraduate degree before the Scholarship starts in April 2008.
In 2005 she conducted her PADI Divemaster course, and in 2006 she became qualified as a TDI Extended Range Technical Diver with almost 200 open water dives under her belt.
After finishing secondary school and during her philosophy studies she travelled independently and extensively throughout India and Nepal. In India she volunteered at a local school and orphanage for unprivileged children. Due to her love of diving and the underwater world, she lived the most part of 2006 in Egypt to enable her to be near the ocean. She speaks three European languages including Dutch (native) English and French.
Eline has a major affection for nature, science and travelling. Her education included a broad variety of subjects, amongst others physics, mathematics, chemistry and biology, economics and politics. Thanks to her travelling she experienced many foreign cultures, languages and different ways of life. Philosophy extends and relates her knowledge of science and life into a broader perspective.
Being fascinated at the age of six by marine life, she created her own little ecosystem in the backyard pond. Maintaining water quality and a small fish population she became aware of how delicate and precious marine life is. On the age of 16 Eline started scuba diving in the Netherlands. Taking her first breaths underwater determined the future that lies ahead of her, a future in which diving will remain an active part of her life and career is no longer in doubt.
Diving relates her to our underwater world. ‘Being underwater relaxes me, and takes away the stress of time and the course of everyday life in our modern society.’ But diving is also a way for me to experience and to gain knowledge about marine life and the environment.’ Eline would like to extend her diving skills through practice, technical dive courses and specialties such as videography, ice diving and cave diving. She hopes that she can contribute and participate in research and expeditions one day with these qualities.
Eline’s main interest is helping to preserve the underwater world through the education of others. Acutely aware of current global environmental problems and passionate about marine conservation, she would like to pursue education and understanding. Her main interest concerns the fishing industry, especially the effect on the well being of whales, sharks and tuna. ‘It stresses me everyday that the well being of the oceans and the life of her inhabitants are at stake; we need to globally interact! The great thing is that there are people fighting everyday to preserve our natural world, but we have come to understand that this will not be enough. We need the whole world to act upon these problems. Though awareness is rising through research, documentaries and public discussions, it is difficult for people around the world to grasp the problems, and solutions. And it is solutions, that we drastically need.’
For Eline the Scholarship will endow her with valuable experience and help her to gain knowledge in great depth to anticipate the well being of the marine ecosystems. The OWUSS is her ticket and ‘masters degree’ to becoming an active and passionate member of the natural world.
Eline is more than grateful and honoured to be chosen as the 2008 European Rolex Scholar. And she hopes to be a valuable ambassador for the beautiful world below the sea.
