Kofi J. Brobbey completed his Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering Physics from the University of Cape Coast Ghana (UCC). Gaining a good background in applied optics, he was awarded a
scholarship to pursue a Master’s degree in Optics and Photonics at the University of Eastern Finland. Material physics, optical design and biomedical optics were some of the courses taken
during this time.

He was then awarded the opportunity to complete a multidisciplinary doctoral degree at the Laboratory of Paper Coating and Converting, where his research topics was related to the production and characterization of antibacterial surfaces. During this period, he gained the extensive knowledge and practical experience in roll-to-roll coating processes and printing technologies such as gravure and flexographic printing. Printing technologies can be applied in producing affordable microfluidic devices in large-scale for biomedical sensing applications.

 

The training and experience gained include different surface modification methods as well as surface chemical characterization techniques, such as X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. A comprehensive introduction to microbiology was part of his doctoral studies, since the characterization of bacteria and methods of quantifying antibacterial efficacy were an integral part of the doctoral studies. He played a key role in a team that developed the Touch-Test method of quantifying antibacterial surfaces during his doctoral studies and covered topics such as antibacterial resistance in his
thesis.

He was a visiting researcher at the Research institute of Sweden, RISE where he collaborated with research partners to improve the adhesion properties of silver nanoparticles on selected substrates using plasma polymerization. In has had several academic seminars over the years as well as participation in several international conferences. He has authored numerous peer-review
articles in internationally renowned journals, such as Applied Surface Science and he has collaborated with others as a co-author.
His knowledge in printing technologies has now been applied in the production of printed electronics at the Technical research Center of Finland, VTT. In addition, his work includes optical design, for example in fluorescent microscopy applications and bio sensing.

 

Currently, his research is related printed electronics, optical sensing for biomedical applications and instrumentation,
natural materials processing, industrial engineering, and papermaking. He has been involved in several EU funded projects including where his role has been optical design, imaging and printed electronics processing. He is interested in promoting industrial and research collaboration with
Africa through EU and UN funded project.