Dr. Morgen was a founding professor of the Chemical Engineering Department in 1938. He became director of the UF Engineering and Industrial Experimental Station and later joined the National Science Foundation, director of Purdue Industrial Experimental Station, President of Rose Polytechnical Institute and Dean of the Graduate School of Stevens Institute prior to his retirement in 1968.

The fund was established in 2012 by his son, Ralph Anthony Morgen, to support students in the University of Florida College of Engineering’s STEPUP Program. Ralph earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Florida in 1949 and worked for International Minerals and Chemical Corporation and served in the Korean War as a pilot. He later joined Black, Sivalls and Bryson and IMC World Trade Corporation. He joined Worley Engineering Ltd as president in 1973. He worked and lived in Europe and Asia for BS&B and Worley for over 20 years. He formed Ralph Morgen, Inc. in 1985 in Houston, Texas and moved back to Gainesville in 1994. He served as an owner and President of MODAR Corporation and helped to commercialize the Super Critical Oxidation process. He later served as an engineering and management consultant to Cabot Corporation before retiring in 2002.