Public Biography
Dr. Raymond Koh is the director of the Center for Automotive Nomenclature Studies at the University of Michigan and an associate professor of mechanical engineering with a joint appointment in the Department of Linguistics. He holds a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from MIT and a master’s degree in applied linguistics from Georgetown University, a combination he describes as “more useful than it sounds.”
Dr. Koh’s research focuses on the intersection of vehicle design, regulatory classification, and the cultural meanings embedded in automotive terminology. He has testified before the Senate Commerce Committee on three occasions, most recently in 2025 regarding proposed revisions to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s vehicle classification framework. His testimony was described by committee staff as “thorough” and by Senator Rick Scott as “a lot of words about words.”
He is the author of What We Talk About When We Talk About Trucks: A History of American Vehicle Taxonomy (University of Michigan Press, 2022), which received favorable reviews in both Automotive Engineering and Language in Society, making it one of the few academic monographs to be positively reviewed in both a mechanical engineering journal and a linguistics journal in the same calendar year.
Dr. Koh lives in Ann Arbor with his wife and two children. He drives a Honda Accord, which he has noted “does not provoke any classification disputes whatsoever.”