ChoKyun Rha

ChoKyun Rha was born in Seoul,^[1] the daughter of SaeJin Rha and Young Soon Choi Rha. Her father was a physician and dean of the medical school at Seoul National University.^[2] She moved to the United States in 1956, and attended Miami University in Ohio,^[3][4] before enrolling at MIT as an undergraduate. She finished a bachelor's degree in 1962, with a senior thesis on the storage of dried scallions.^[5] She stayed at MIT to earn master's degrees in 1964 and 1966, and completed a doctoral degree in 1967,^[6] with a dissertation titled "Thermal Sterilization of Flexibly Packaged Foods".^[7]

Rha was a professor of biomaterials science and engineering at MIT, until her retirement in 2006. In 1980, she became the first Asian woman to earn tenure at MIT.^[6] She helped establish Genzyme, a biotechnology firm, and founded and directed the Malaysia-MIT Biotechnology Partnership Program. She endowed a professorship in industrial biotechnology at MIT.^[8] She was a co-founder of Women’s World Banking, a microfinancing program.^[9]

Rha's research focused on biochemistry and biotechnology for food and other applications. Her work was published in academic journalist including Journal of Food Science, Nature Biotechnology,^[10] Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology,^[11][12] Bioresource Technology,^[13] Biotechnology Letters,^[14] and British Journal of Nutrition.^[15][16] She earned her first of several patents in 1988, with a process for encapsulation.^[17] As part of her work in Malaysia, she developed several patented products derived from palm oil.^[18]

• "Evaluation of cheese texture" (1978, with Cho Lee and Em Imoto)
• "Microstructure of soybean protein aggregates and its relation to the physical and textural properties of the curd" (1978, with Cho Lee)
• "Single-Cell Protein: Engineering, Economics, and Utilization in Foods" (1980, with C. L. Cooney and S. R. Tannenbaum)^[19][20]
• "Improved detergent-based recovery of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs)" (2011, with Yung-Han Yang, Christopher Brigham, Laura Willis, and Anthony Sinskey)^[14]
• Theory, Determination and Control of Physical Properties of Food Materials (book edited by Rha, 2012)^[21]
• Characterization of chitosan film" (2012, with Carlos A. Kienzle-Sterzer and Dolores Rodriguez Sanchez)^[22]
• "Characterization of an extracellular lipase and its chaperone from Ralstonia eutropha H16" (2013, with Jingnan Lu, Christopher Brigham, and Anthony Sinskey)^[23]

ChoKyun Rha married fellow MIT professor Anthony Sinskey, and the couple frequently collaborated on research.^[24][25] She had two sons, Tong-ik Lee Sinskey^[26] and Taeminn Song, both of whom graduated from MIT. Rha died in 2021, in Boston, aged 87 years.^[1][27]