Koh Choon Hwee

Biography

Koh Choon Hwee is assistant professor of Ottoman history at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Her first research project uses the Ottoman relay postal system to study early modern state formation. Her second project is about the double-rent (icareteyn) system found in Ottoman cities. She is also undertaking long-term research on money in the Ottoman empire.

Her work has won various prizes, including the Jack Goody Article Prize 2023 (for “The Mystery of the Missing Horses”), the Berkshire Conference Article Prize 2022 (Honorable Mention for “The Ottoman Postmaster”), and the Malcolm Kerr Dissertation Prize (Social Sciences) by the Middle East Studies Assocation (MESA) in 2020. Before doing her PhD, Koh studied at the American University of Beirut, National University of Singapore, Delhi University, and the University of Arizona.

At UCLA, she is a member of the Ottoman Music Ensemble where she plays the goblet drum (darbouka). Together with history department colleagues, she helps to run the History Brown Bag Seminar Series (reach out if you are in the area and want to workshop a paper!)

She was born and raised in Singapore. Read her retweets @OttomanChoon and her reposts on bluesky @superoldgranny .