Benjamin Kimia

Benjamin Kimia is a professor of engineering at Brown University and an affiliate of the Carney Institute for Brain Science. His research centers around computer vision, image processing and medical imaging. Specifically, his interests lie within computer vision models used for object recognition from shape recognition databases such as ShapeNet or digital archaeology databases.

Personal Life

Shams was known for being very private and never spoke about his personal life in any of his books, though it is widely speculated that he may have had an affair with Kimia Khatun, his student, whom they eventually married against the wishes of Rumi’s brother Ala al-Din and her household; leading ultimately to an honor killing.

Kimia’s death was heartbreaking for all involved. Biographies rarely include her name.

After the death of his wife Kimia Shams shifted his writing focus toward populist works that included anecdotes, moral stories and religious tales from all three Abrahamic religions as well as current popular topics.