Bio

Dr. Valencia Joyner Koomson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University. She completed the B.S. and M.Eng. degrees in electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1998 and 1999, respectively. As a Marshall Scholar, she studied at the University of Cambridge and received the M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering in 2000 and 2003, respectively.  

Dr. Koomson’s research lies at the intersection of biology, medicine, and electrical engineering.  Her interests are in nanoelectronic circuits and systems for wearable/implantable medical devices and advanced nano-/microfluidic systems to probe intercellular communication.  She has co-authored several book chapters, publications, and holds a patent for a system and method for measuring phase delay and amplitude of an optical signal in animal tissue.  In 2005, she held an Adjunct Professor appointment at Howard University.  Dr. Koomson was a Visiting Professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Boston University in 2008 and 2013, respectively. Prior to joining Tufts, she held an appointment as a VLSI Research Engineer at the University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute (USC/ISI), where she performed research on the design of radiation-hardened analog/mixed signal VLSI systems in CMOS for military and space applications.

Dr. Koomson is a Marshall Scholar, Intel Foundation Scholar, National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, and 2010 recipient of the NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award. She served as the Technical Program Chair of the 60th IEEE Midwest Symposium on Circuits in Systems and member of the MWSCAS Steering Committee since 2013.  She is completing her second term as an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems-I.  Dr. Koomson is a member of the Reading Committee for the Marshall Scholarship Program and several professional societies and technical program committees.

Read more

Selected Honors and Awards

2011: CAREER Award, National Science Foundation
1999-2001: Marshall Scholarship
2001-2004: Graduate Research Fellowship, National Science Foundation
1999-2003: St. John's College Benefactors' Scholarship for Research, University of Cambridge
1998: Inducted, Eta Kappa Nu Honor Society
 

At MIT

Valencia Koomson: Research and Reflections, MLK Luncheon Seminar Series, 12 January 2022

Valencia Joyner Koomson among the judges for the Black Alumni/ae of MIT Research Slam, BAMIT, 25 March 2021

Q&A: Valencia Joyner Koomson ’98, MNG ’99 on new possibilities in microelectronic health systems, MIT News, 9 December 2020