4 minute read
Professor Valencia Koomson
VALENCIA KOOMSON
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING
Reminiscing back to the time when she first joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Professor Valencia Koomson was attracted to Tufts for a number of reasons: the school’s reputation as a world-renowned institution; its balanced focus on the liberal arts, science, and technology; its high quality of engineering education; and students’ easy access to research labs.
Koomson leads the Advanced Integrated Circuits and Systems Lab, which focuses on how engineers build technology that can help people improve their quality of life. “Our primary area of research is in how we build very small, miniaturized, and microscale electrical systems and how we can embed those systems into all types of devices to help people manage their health and to understand various biological phenomena.”
Koomson’s work builds upon semiconductor technology, which was revolutionary in technological history. After all, semiconductor technology has dramatically shifted the way people communicate with cell phones, smartphones, and other devices with wireless functions that are built into everything we use today. But what really drives Professor Koomson’s research is, “how can we use [semiconductors] to non-invasively measure your health? Measure some biomarker in your blood that could tell us how much oxygen is flowing to your muscles or to your brain? It could help us determine your disease state and how healthy you are.”
Health equity also provides a source of fulfillment for Professor Koomson. For one, she led outreach efforts emphasizing that pulse oximeter readings are more likely to be inaccurate for patients with darker skin tones. When oxygen binds to hemoglobin in blood, it changes color. Detecting the level of absorption of light for these very important molecules can indicate how much oxygen is flowing through your blood—essentially a measure of how well your lungs are functioning. According to Koomson, “oximeters are based on optical technology, and one of the issues is that there are many layers of the skin that absorb and scatter light and can cause error with these devices. We’ve known for decades that these devices are prone to error due to a number of factors. But one major confounding factor is skin pigmentation, or melanin absorption, that absorbs in the same range of wavelengths in which we’re trying to detect the flow of oxygen.” In response to this, Koomson and her lab have been working on new technology that can reduce errors in these devices, particularly making them insensitive to skin pigmentation, and ensure that they can work on diverse populations.
Koomson has been in contact with policymakers and scientists about this issue. “I spent one summer contacting our congressional delegation in Massachusetts to make sure that lawmakers are aware of these issues and talking to their staff members who focus on health policy. Senator Warren, in fact, led the charge back in 2021 to urge the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to review this.” This was followed up in November 2022 with a public forum with the FDA where research groups strongly recommended a review on the technology and in grassroots campaigns that spread awareness about the limitations of pulse oximeters to healthcare workers.
Beyond her work as a researcher and as an advocate, you might wonder: what excites Professor Koomson in the day-to-day? First, it has to be the students. “I’ve had a wonderful experience, mentoring and teaching here at Tufts. I probably graduated over 30 PhD and Masters students, and mentored 50 or 60 undergraduate students in terms of projects. I had a team of students who won the Ricci Prize in the School of Engineering for their Senior Design Project that was done under my direction. I’ve also had students win the $100K New Ventures competition. The investment that the University makes in developing students and offering these various programs and enrichment activities…it’s really phenomenal and unique.”
Professor Koomson also loves the crosscollaborative opportunities and project-based teaching. “I’m a faculty fellow at the Tisch College for Civic Life, which has been very supportive of my work.” Among other courses, Koomson teaches Wearable Systems Design and Engineering, where students build something that meets a real-world need. “Students first do a needs assessment and find a problem that affects a certain population. Then, they think about a solution they can design to achieve a specific outcome. They ultimately go about building their prototypes based on a topic that’s near and dear to them. Students use their creativity to bring their own lived experiences to the design process and come up with a solution that has an impact on people’s lives. Teaching at Tufts is always just an exciting experience.”
