UIC Bioengineering Doctoral Student Receives FMC Fellowship

Christopher Knowlton, a University of Illinois at Chicago doctoral student in bioengineering, is among four University of Illinois Ph.D. students who received $20,000 FMC Technologies, Inc., Fellowships for the 2012-2013 academic year.

Four master’s students will each receive $12,000.

The selection committee included representatives from FMC Technologies, Inc., the University of Illinois, and the U of I Foundation.

The FMC Technologies, Inc., Scholarship Fund, formerly called the FMC Educational Fund, was originally established as the Link-Belt Educational Fund in 1963 with a donation from University of Illinois alumnus Bert A. Gayman. A few years later, Link-Belt merged into the FMC Corporation, which later became FMC Technologies, Inc. Intending to provide education and research opportunities, the fund now provides approximately $360,000 annually for undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships at the University of Illinois.

Gayman, a Champaign native who earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Illinois in 1897, spent his entire career with Link-Belt in Chicago and chose to remain an anonymous donor to this educational fund until 1973, a year before his death.