Ha Pham is a historian with a long-term interest in the Vietnam War and its legacies. Pham has worked as principal researcher in many research projects on Vietnamese history sponsored by the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences and the Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam such as History of Vietnam 1954-1965, History of Vietnam 1965-1975, History of the Government of Vietnam 1955-1976. Her research interests include the involvement of the United States in the building of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam’s development of socialism in North Vietnam during the Cold War era. She also focused on efforts of international cooperation between the Socialist Republic of Vietnam with the United States, Russia, Australia, Republic of Korea, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and international organizations to address the consequences of the Vietnam War.
Ha Pham is richly experienced in the use of primary archival materials from various sources, especially those from Vietnam’s archival centers, the Ministry of National Defense of Vietnam and from the archives of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Pham has also conducted many interviews with former high-ranking officials in the government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN), veterans of the Vietnam Wars from both sides, as well as wives and mothers of fallen soldiers who died in the conflicts. Ha Pham joins the Unseen Legacies of the Vietnam War Project to serve as a country representative of the Harvard research team in Vietnam. She leads the verification of the fallen soldiers’ information, and the delivery of the findings to their relatives and families.