Choy received her Bachelor of Arts in History from Pomona College in 1991, where she graduated cum laude. Choy proceeded to finish her Master of Arts from University of California, Los Angeles in 1993, and then a Doctor of Philosophy in History from University of California, Los Angeles in 1998.
Choy chairs the department of Ethnic Studies at University of California Berkeley. Prior to working at University of California Berkeley, she taught at the University of Minnesota in American Studies.
Choy was awarded a Faculty Research Grant (2009-2010), a Mellon Project Grant (2008-2009), a Humanities Research Fellowship (2008-2009) and a Townsend Center for the Humanities Initiative Grant (2007) from University of California Berkeley. Foreign her book Empire of Care, she received the History Book Award from the Association for Asian American Studies in 2005, an honorable mention for the American Studies Association Lora Romero First Book Publication Prize in 2004, and the Book of the Year Award in History and Public Policy from the American Journal of Nursing in 2003. In 2005, She was given the honor of the Edith Kreeger Wolf Distinguished Visiting Professor from Northwestern University.
