Ingrid Michaelson /

Ingrid Ellen Egbert Michaelson (born December 8, 1979) is a New York-based indie-pop singer-songwriter, best known for her single "The Way I Am". Her music has been featured in episodes of several popular television shows, including Scrubs, Bones, Grey's Anatomy The Big C and One Tree Hill, as well as in Old Navy's Fall 2007 Fair Isle and Opel's/Vauxhall's Meriva 2010 advertising campaign. Michaelson was born to artistic parents. Her father is a composer and her mother is a sculptor. Michaelson took up piano at age four, and trained until seven at Manhattan's Third Street Music School, continuing for many more years at the Jewish Community Center of Staten Island's Dorothy Delson Kuhn Music Institute. While there she met vocal coach Elizabeth McCullough, who worked with her through high school. She is a graduate of Staten Island Technical High School and Binghamton University, where she received a degree in theater. While at Binghamton University she was a member of the Binghamtonics, a co-ed acappella group, as well as the Pappy Parker Players, an improv comedy group, and the theatre repertory company under Sue Peters. Her time at Binghamton is mentioned in the song "The Hat".