Frederick L. Hovde

Who was Frederick L. Hovde?

Frederick Lawson Hovde was an American chemical engineer, researcher, educator and president of Purdue University.

Born in Erie, Pennsylvania, Hovde received his Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota, where he played on the football team. Elected to a Rhodes Scholarship, he spent three years at Oxford University where he received two degrees in chemistry. While at Oxford, he was a member of the varsity rugby football team and in 1931 he became the third American in history to win his Oxford blue in the annual Oxford-Cambridge rugby union match.