Dr. Betty Koed Historian United States Senate

Dr. Betty Koed is the historian for the United States Senate and director of the Senate Historical Office. She has a Ph.D. in political history from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).

Prior to coming to the Senate in 1998, Dr. Koed taught history at UCSB and provided editorial assistance to The Public Historian. She subsequently served on that journal’s editorial board from 2000 to 2009. From 2001 to 2010, she also served as adjunct professor of history for Cornell-in-Washington. A former officer of the Society for History in the federal government, Dr. Koed has co-edited that organization’s quarterly newsletter and now sits on the editorial board for the Society’s journal, Federal History.

Among her current Senate projects are online documentary histories of Senate impeachment trials, notable Senate investigations, and contested Senate elections. An experienced oral historian, Dr. Koed is conducting interviews to explore the role of women in Senate history, to document the decision-making process related to the recent economic crises, and to better understand the evolution of the Senate’s rules and precedents.

She oversees the more than 10,000 pages of historical material on the Senate website and is the senior editor of the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress.