Henry Lim

With the death of Henry Lim on February 12, 2021, at the age of 85, UC Irvine lost the singular person most responsible for establishing the discipline of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UC Irvine.

Prof. Lim was a native of Seoul, Korea who came to the United States in 1953 to pursue undergraduate studies in Chemical Engineering at Oklahoma State University. Following the completion of his Bachelor’s degree, he would complete a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan in 1959. With an interest in Bioreactor Design and Optimization, he became Process Development Engineer with Pfizer in Groton, Connecticut.  Four years later, he left Pfizer to pursue doctoral studies at Northwestern which he completed in 1966 under the direction of Prof. S. George Bankoff. He joined the faculty of the School of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University immediately thereafter and was influential in establishing biochemical engineering as an accepted sub-field within Chemical Engineering. At Purdue, his research and educational interests spanned applied mathematics, biochemical engineering, environmental engineering and process control. 

Prof. Lim was subsequently recruited to UC Irvine in 1987 by then Dean Bill Sirignano to establish Chemical and Biochemical Engineering. This was a critical time for the emerging School of Engineering which had only 31 faculty members and three departments. There was campuswide support to build Biochemical Engineering at UCI. Henry provided the image, the energy, and the wisdom needed for spearheading this initiative and strengthening Engineering’s connection with the Schools of Physical Sciences, Biological Sciences & Medicine.

The process started with the development of a graduate program in Biochemical Engineering in 1988. In the following years Prof. Lim, working with now Prof. Emeritus Juan Hong and current faculty member Prof. Nancy Da Silva, would develop the full undergraduate and graduate curriculum and educational laboratories leading to the establishment of the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering in 1994. Professor Lim also managed the inclusion of Materials Science faculty into the department in 1995 and served as Founding Department Chair of the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering and Materials Science until 1997. He remained an active member of the UCI faculty in the combined Department of Chemical Engineering & Materials Science until 2009.  He was well remembered for his kindness, generosity, and supportive mentorship of young faculty. “A decent man with a noble heart,” as remembered by our colleague, Professor Emeritus Farghalli Mohamed.

Over his career, in addition to over 120 journal articles, Prof. Lim co-authored influential books: Biological Wastewater Treatment published by Dekker with Leslie Grady in 1980 and Fed-Batch Cultures published by Cambridge University Press with Hwa Sung Shin in 2013. Several of his doctoral students are prominent Chemical Engineering faculty including Terry Papoutsakis at University of Delaware, David DiBiaso at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Jayant Modak at the Indian Institute of Science, and Tai Hyun Park at Seoul National University. Professor Lim received important recognition as an elected member of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology in 1997 and a senior member of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology in 2004.

Sadly, Mrs. Sun Boo (Sunny) Lim passed away shortly thereafter on February 19. The Lim’s are survived by their three children, David, Carol, and Michael.

Vasan Venugopalan, Professor and Chair
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, UC Irvine