Skip to Content
MIT News magazine

ChoKyun Rha

Boston, MA
November 14, 2006

“MIT is my home. I absolutely love the Institute and feel obliged to do whatever I can for it, not only because it’s done so much for me but also because I feel I am part of this great institution,” says ChoKyun Rha, an MIT faculty member for 32 years who recently established a gift annuity to support a professorship in industrial biotechnology.

ChoKyun Rha

Rha earned four degrees from MIT. Her husband, Anthony J. Sinskey, a professor of biology, also attended the Institute; so did their two sons and a granddaughter. When a second granddaughter graduates in 2009, the family will hold 10 MIT degrees.

“This is the greatest, finest institution in the world,” Rha says. “A professorship is essential, because it’s about the pursuit of excellence, which is the spirit of MIT and is what makes it such a novel institution.”

Raised in Seoul, Korea, Rha joined the faculty in 1974. She is now a professor of biomaterials science and engineering, directing a research team in the Biomaterials Science and Engineering Lab. A principal scientific con-tributor in the founding of Genzyme, Rha remains active with biotech startups. She directs the Malaysia-MIT Bio-technology Partnership Programme, which develops the biotech industry in Malaysia. She also serves on the inter-national advisory panel to the prime minister of Malaysia.

“Giving is a privilege,” she says. “MIT allowed me to develop and to define my life. It created for me a very special world where there is no limit to what one can do.”

Rha’s gift annuity, established with appreciated stock, will provide her with a tax deduction and a high, fixed, tax-free income for life. For giving information, contact Judy Sager: 617-253-6463; jsager@mit.edu. Or visit giving.mit.edu.

Keep Reading

Most Popular

Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.

And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.

OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora

The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.

Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.

Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.

This baby with a head camera helped teach an AI how kids learn language

A neural network trained on the experiences of a single young child managed to learn one of the core components of language: how to match words to the objects they represent.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.