Channy Chhi Laux, Author and Chef

Channy Chhi Laux is a refugee from Cambodia. She survived the Cambodian genocide that killed 2 million of her fellow Cambodians, including her father and her 12-year-old brother. She spent most of her teenage years in labor camps enduring starvation, horrendous working conditions, sickness, and repeated separations from her family before escaping and immigrating to the United States. 

After four years of labor camps, no school, and not knowing a word of English, she attended high school, and went on to earn a bachelor of science from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a master of science in applied mathematics from Santa Clara University. Laux worked in Silicon Valley as an engineer in the aerospace and biotech industries for 30 years. She published her memoir Short Hair Detention in 2017, which went on to receive multiple awards, including the 2018 Best Indie Book Award and Nebraska’s 2018 Book Award.

Laux is the founder of Angkor Cambodian Food, which provides authentic and hard to find ingredients along with easy-to-follow recipes. In 2023, following her passion to introduce Khmer culinary culture to America, Laux opened the highly acclaimed Angkor Chef restaurant, offering authentic Cambodian food in San Jose, California.

Today, Laux balances her time between her business and giving back to the community by educating future generations about the atrocities of the Cambodian Genocide. She seeks to promote understanding, empathy, and compassion, and strives to inspire action against injustice to prevent such horrors from ever occurring again.