慶応義塾大学経済学部准教授。近年は、19世紀蘭領東インドの貿易と移民、および19世紀ユーラシアにおける海賊と国家形成の関係、さらに植民地期北スラウェシにおける農民開発に関心を持つ。ライデン大学で学位取得（2005年）。2005-06年ラトガース大学歴史分析センター研究員、2006-08年シンガポール国立大学人文社会学部ポストドクトラル・フェロー、2008-12年台湾中央研究院人文社会科学中心助研究員、2012-16年広島大学大学院文学研究科准教授を経て現職。
著書 Regime Changes and Local Dynamics in West Java: Society, State, and the Outer World of Banten, 1750-1830 (Boston and Leiden: Brill, 2006) が第4回東南アジア史学会賞を、著書『近世東南アジア世界の変容ーグローバル経済とジャワ島地域社会』（名古屋大学出版会、2014）を中心とする近世近代インドネシア史研究が第12回日本学術振興会賞および第12回日本学士院学術奨励賞を受賞。

OTA Atsushi is associate professor in economic history at Faculty of Economics, Keio University, Japan. Having obtained his PhD (history) at Leiden University in 2005, Ota Atsushi worked at the Research Center of Historical Analysis, Rutgers University, as Associate Research Fellow in 2005-06, at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, the National University of Singapore as Postdoctoral Research Fellow in 2006-08, at the Research Center of Humanities and Social Sciences, Academia Sinica (Taiwan) as Assistant Research Fellow in 2008-12, and at the Graduate School of Letters, Hiroshima University as Associate Professor in 2012-16. He is currently interested in nineteenth-century trade and migration in the Netherlands East Indies, the relationship between piracy and state formation in nineteenth-century Eurasia, and the agricultural development in colonial North Sulawesi. He was awarded the 4th Southeast Asian History Prize for his Changes of Regime and Social Dynamics in West Java: Society, State, and the Outer World of Banten, 1750-1830, (Boston and Leiden: Brill, 2006), and the 12th Japan Society for Promotion of Science Prize and the 12th Japan Academy Medal for his study  on early-modern and modern  Indonesia, which resulted in his Transformation of Early-modern Southeast Asian World: Global Economy and Local Society of Java (Nagoya University Press, 2014).