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Think of Ruth Milkereit as an explorer. With the human body as her map and a microscope as her vessel, she is inspired by the idea of making a new discovery – like a protein that resists cancer treatments.

That’s her focus as she pursues graduate studies in Biochemistry at the University of Toronto, funded by the Ontario Graduate Student Scholarship and a CGS Doctoral Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

But Milkereit is not sticking to only one route. When not in the lab, she’s in the classroom as a teaching assistant, working with the Biochemistry Graduate Student Union, volunteering with kids with disabilities or with the Toronto District School Board's "Tutor's in the Classroom" program.

And it was her education at Toronto French School that gave her the drive to chase so many passions.

“My chemistry teacher, he was just so inspiring. He would give us lots of work to do, and at the time we thought, ‘Why is he giving us so much work?’ But in the end, it really helped us because it was a push,” she explains.

Milkereit says TFS opened up many possibilities for herfrom the guidance counselors who helped her schedule in physics, chemistry, and biology, to the bilingual education that allows her to expand her research internationally.

While the results of her research remain unknown, that doesn’t stop her from planning her own: a PhD, teaching at the university level, and running her own research lab.

“That is one thing that TFS taught me–to not be afraid of the challenge, to take it on, to do your best."