Cynthia Chou

Biography

Cynthia Chou is Professor of Anthropology, C. Maxwell and Elizabeth M. Stanley Family Chair of Asian Studies and Director of the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies at the University of Iowa. She received her Ph.D. in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom in 1994 and was awarded in 2011 the highest Danish academic degree of dr.phil. by the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, in recognition of her work on the Orang Suku Laut (People of the Sea), who are the indigenous people of a vast maritime world known as the Alam Melayu (Malay World).

Cynthia Chou smiling for headshot