Dr. Valencia Joyner Koomson
Principal Investigator
Office: Tufts-Halligan Hall, Room 210
Tel: (617) 627-2291
Fax: (617) 627-3220
http://www.ece.tufts.edu/~vkoomson
Email

Dr. Valencia Joyner Koomson joined Tufts University in 2005 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. She completed the B.S. and M.Eng. degrees in electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1998 and 1999, respectively. She received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Cambridge, UK in 2003.

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. Her research interests are in the design of silicon-based mixed-mode VLSI systems (analog, digital, RF, optical), analog signal processing, and optoelectronic system-on-chip modeling and integration for applications in optical wireless communication and biomedical imaging. Dr. Valencia Joyner Koomson is a former Marshall Scholar, Intel Foundation Scholar and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. She is a member of the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society, IEEE Photonics Society, and IEEE Women in Engineering – Boston chapter Chair.

Graduate Students

Ali Mirvakili Ph.D. candidate		Ali received his B.S in electrical engineering from Yazd University, Iran in 2005 and a M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from K.N. Toosi University of Technology, Iran in 2008. His M.Sc. thesis research focused on the analysis and design of CMOS low-noise amplifiers for ultra-wideband applications. His doctoral research work focuses on the development of LED driver circuit architectures for future-generation visible "smart lighting" networks, combining high-speed data communication and illumination control.
Chirag Sthalekar Ph.D. candidate		Chirag received his B.E. in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering from University of Pune, India in 2008 and an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from The George Washington University, Washington DC in 2010. He joined Dr. Koomson’s lab in 2010 and is pursuing a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. His research focuses on the integration of optical signal processing devices such as filters in CMOS and the analysis and design of CMOS low-power circuits for bio-medical imaging and sensing applications.
Ninrat Datiri Ph.D. candidate		Ninrat received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2007 and his M.S. in Computer Engineering from NC State University in 2010. His prior related research included experiences at: UW-Madison’s Multiphase Flow Visualization and Analysis Lab and the Wisconsin Electric Machines and Power Electronics Consortium Lab. His previous related internship experiences include: IBM’s pSeries Server Disk Drive Qualification and Integration Lab (2004), Hewlett Packard’s System VLSI Lab (2006-2009), and Intel Corporation’s Massachusetts Microprocessor Design Center (2010). He is a member of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He received an Intel-sponsored GEM Fellowship in 2010 to conduct doctoral research work at Tufts on the design of digitally-assisted analog circuits for circuit health monitoring.
Enjin Fu Ph.D. candidate		Enjin received his B.S. in Electronic Information Engineering from Nanchang University in 2006 and M.S. in Circuit and System from Southeast University, Nanjing, China in 2009. His M.S. thesis focused on the design of ultra-wide range PLL frequency synthesizer with CMOS technology. He joined Dr. Koomson's Lab in the fall of 2010 to pursue his PhD degree. Now he is focusing on integrated and board level circuit design for RF and optical wireless applications.
Chenguang Xi Ph.D. candidate		Chenguang Xi received his B.S. in Microelectronics from Shanghai Jiaotong University, China in 2010. His B.S. thesis research focused on moving object detection based on GMM using System Generator. He joined Prof. Koomson’s lab in 2010 and is pursuing a M.S in electrical engineering. His research work focuses on development of network interface circuits "smart" solid-state lighting systems, combining high-speed data communication and illumination control.

Alumni

Dr. Ruida Yun completed the Ph.D. degree in August 2011 and is now working at Analog Devices in Wilmington, MA. Thesis Title: "Integrated Optical Sensing Architectures for Frequency-domain Near Infrared Spectroscopy"

Scott Pruessing completed the M.S. Degree in May 2010 and is now working at BBN Technologies. Thesis Title: "Power Aware Integrated Control Systems for Soft-bodied Robots in Dynamic Environments"

Juan Zeng completed the M.S. degree in August 2009 and is now a graduate student at Purdue University. Thesis title: "Design of High Performance RF/FSO Dual-Mode Transceivers for Broadband Wireless Communication"

Yiling Zhang completed the M.S. degree in August 2008 and is now working at EMC in Framingham, MA. Thesis title: "Design of CMOS Front-end Receivers for Optical Wireless Communication"

Scott Harris completed his M.S. degree in December 2006 and is now working at Raytheon Corporation.