Linzixuan (Rhoda) Zhang is a doctoral student in the MIT Department of Chemical Engineering. She recently won the 2024 Collegiate Inventors Competition. She won medals in the Graduate and People’s Choice categories. Her work is about making food better by keeping nutrients stable to help global health.
This competition celebrates college student inventors. The winners present their projects to important judges from the National Inventors Hall of Fame and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
Zhang has won awards before. She has received the Koch Institute Image Awards three times, and she was a fellow at the MIT Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab in 2022.
About 2 billion people in the world do not get enough vitamins and minerals. This is especially a problem for children and pregnant women. Zhang and her teammate, Xin Yang, made a special coffee called MOFe Coffee. This coffee has added iron, which helps people get more nutrients easily.
“We want to help improve health for everyone,” says Zhang.
Vocabulary List:
- Competition /kəmˈpɛtɪʃən/ (noun): An event in which individuals or teams compete for a prize.
- Inventors /ɪnˈvɛntərz/ (noun): People who create new products or ideas.
- Nutrients /ˈnjuːtrɪənts/ (noun): Substances that provide nourishment essential for growth and the maintenance of life.
- Stable /ˈsteɪbəl/ (adjective): Not likely to change or fail; firm and steady.
- Project /ˈprɒdʒɛkt/ (noun): A planned undertaking or task typically to achieve something.
- Health /hɛlθ/ (noun): The state of being free from illness or injury; physical and mental well-being.
