Robert DeLong retired from the city government in Salem,Oregon and became a full-time graduate student in the Scandinavian Studies Department at the University of Washington in the fall of 2005.  He has been captivated by Scandinavia ever since he worked on a dairy farm outside of Trondheim, Norway when he was 18 in 1967.  He feels especially fortunate to be able to work with Dr. Ingebritsen, one of the leading experts in Scandinavian politics, since her field of expertise allows him to combine his interest in Scandinavia with his experience in the political world.

He was awarded a Jonsson fellowship to study Scandinavia and the European Union as an exchange student at the University of Linköping, Sweden for six months in 2006.  He has made two presentations at the annual Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Studies annual conference. Both of the papers he presented had Danish topics. In 2007 his topic was Karen Blixen and the Mau Mau Rebellion.  The paper was nominated for the Aurora Borealis Award.  In 2008 his subject was Danish involvement in the War in Iraq.  He has recently been notified that the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Studies will be publishing this in a forthcoming edition of their scholarly journal.

He has completed all course requirements for a Masters Degree in Scandinavian Studies, and is now focused on his thesis research - again a Danish topic: an aspect of the escape of the Danish Jews to Sweden in 1943.