Hannah Ha

Hannah Ha (Huong Ha) was born Vietnam and earned scholarships to attend high school and university, where she majored in political philosophy. As a reporter, she covered political and corporate corruption, earning several awards, notably the Vietnam National Press Award for her investigation into the secret 1979-1989 war between Vietnam and China. Her reporting resulted in veterans receiving long-denied benefits, widows obtaining pensions, and a national reckoning with a hidden chapter of history. 

Hannah was an editor of the political division at one of Vietnam’s largest online news platforms, contributed to the BBC in London, and worked with the Government Accountability Project in Washington, D.C. She earned a Humphrey Fellowship in public policy at Syracuse University and a Chevening Scholarship to earn a master’s degree in media at SOAS University of London. She began her doctoral studies at the University of Kansas before transferring to the University of Colorado Boulder, where she is completing her Ph.D. 

Her research focuses on environmental and health communication in the context of social media and journalism practice. Her work has been presented at national and international conferences and published in Digital Health. Her book, Fragments of Memory 1979-1989: Stories from the Northern Border, was published in Vietnamese in July 2024.  

Hannah enjoys cooking, yoga, hiking, and practicing shinrin-yoku (forest bathing).