Khendum Choden PhD is a poet, author, and the first Bhutanese Ph.D. graduate of the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). She is the daughter of a diplomat from the Kingdom of Bhutan and has also lived in Bangladesh, India and the United States. She was educated at Yangchenphug Higher Secondary School, then in Humanities High School in New York, USA, graduating in 2001. She started a course in Business Management and Economics in Stony Brook University, graduating in 2005, and has a doctoral degree in International Business/ Information Systems from UTEP. She was awarded the UTEP Dodson Fellowship and the Marcus Jonathan Hunt Graduate Fellowship.