Ellen Bengtson was a Charles City Rotary Club member and an environmental engineer at Cambrex Charles City, Inc. Her life ended in a tragic bicycle accident near Charles City on August 2, 2020.

Ellen earned her Bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Yale University (2014), and her Master's Degree (2019) in chemical engineering from Columbia University in New York. She grew up in Richland, Washington, where she graduated from Richland High School in 2010 and was a 2010 Rotary Scholarship Recipient. She also received a high school diploma from Stanford University's online high school through the Education Program for Gifted Youth. Prior to Cambrex, her positions included: research assistant at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (2011); research assistant at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (2012); Chemical Engineering Intern at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (2014); and Knowledge Management Intern at Bayer HealthCare in Leverkusen, Germany (2014).

Click here to learn more about Ellen.

The Ellen Bengtson Memorial Scholarship Fund

The Ellen Bengtson Memorial Scholarship Fund has been established with the Floyd County Community Foundation. The fund will support the Ellen Bengtson Memorial Scholarship, created in memory of Ellen Bengtson, and will be awarded to a female student applicant who is pursuing a degree in engineering, math, or chemistry at an accredited post-secondary institution.

The Floyd County Community Foundation was selected to hold the fund because of its experience with managing scholarships in Iowa. Additionally, donations to endowed funds with a qualified community foundation, like the Floyd County Community Foundation, are eligible for a 25% state tax credit on the total value of the gift through the Endow Iowa Tax Credit Program. All qualified donors can carry forward the tax credit for up to five years after the year the donation was made. More information about Endow Iowa can be found at www.cfneia.org/endowiowa.