Kimani Christopher Toussaint, Jr. is an American engineer who is a professor and senior associate dean in the School of Engineering at Brown University.[1][2] His research considers the development of quantitative nonlinear optical imaging methods and advanced optical techniques for nanotechnology, and the characterization of plasmonic nanostructure.[3] He is a Fellow of Optica.
Toussaint is from Philadelphia.[4] He became interested in physics as a child.[5] Toussaint studied physics and African American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where he met Anthony Garito, a professor who introduced him to optics and engineering.[5] In his physics classes, he was one of the only African American students.[5] He moved to Boston University for his graduate research, where he specialized in electrical engineering. His doctoral research explored quantumellipsometry of semiconductors.[6] At Boston, he was awarded a Gates Millennium Fellowship, which supported his graduate program.[4]
Research and career
After his PhD, Toussaint was a postdoctoralfellow at the University of Chicago, where he worked on superresolution optical microscopy, optical tweezing of nanoparticles, and polarization control.[7][8]
In 2014, Toussaint worked as a Martin Luther King Jr. Visiting associate professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and worked with Peter So.[10] In Fall 2019, Toussaint joined the faculty at Brown University, and by 2020 he was made a Senior Associate Dean of the School of Engineering.[11][12] He leads the Photonics Research of Bio/Nano Environments (PROBE) laboratory[13] and is Senior Associate Dean in the School of Engineering.[14] He is part of the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center in Cellular Metamaterials.[11]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, it emerged that pulse oximeters were less effective on Black patients. This is because melanin absorbs light, making pulse oximeters overestimate the level of oxygen in a patient's blood.[15] In response, Toussaint started to develop a new, more equitable device.[16][15] In an interview with Optica, Toussaint said that the pandemic changed his perspective of where his research could have the largest societal impact.[15][17]
Awards and honors
Toussaint is a Fellow of SPIE[18] and Optica.[5] Other awards and honors include:
