Hahrie Han and Gala Porras-Kim named 2025 MacArthur Fellows, win $800K ‘Genius Grant’

Hahrie Han, a Korean American political scientist at Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore), and Gala Porras-Kim, an interdisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles and London and visiting critic at Yale University, have been named 2025 MacArthur Fellows, one of the most prestigious honors in the United States for creative excellence.

The MacArthur Foundation announced on October 8, 2025, that Han, director of the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins, and Porras-Kim, a Colombia-born artist of Korean descent, are among 22 recipients recognized this year for their exceptional creativity and potential. Each fellow receives a no-strings-attached award of $800,000 over five years to freely pursue their work.

Hahrie Han, 50, earned her bachelor’s degree from Harvard University in 1995 and her Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University in 2005. She is the first professor from Johns Hopkins University to receive the MacArthur Fellowship. Her research focuses on democratic organizing, social movements, and civic engagement. Han has written Moved to Action, Develop Activists, and Undivided (2024), which explores racial solidarity within mainstream Christianity.

According to the MacArthur Foundation, Han’s work “advances scholars’ understanding of what makes certain forms of civic participation more durable and impactful than others,” using diverse methods to study how individuals and organizations interact to create social change and strengthen democracy.

Gala Porras-Kim, 40, examines how cultural artifacts are preserved, interpreted, and given meaning within museums and institutional collections. Her interdisciplinary practice poses questions about who determines an object’s story and how its preservation reflects broader cultural narratives.

Her works have been exhibited at the Leeum Museum of Art, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), the Carnegie Museum of Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Porras-Kim earned her BFA in art and Latin American studies from UCLA in 2007 and her MFA from CalArts in 2009.

Established in 1981, the MacArthur Fellowship supports individuals demonstrating exceptional creativity across disciplines such as science, art, and social innovation. Previous Korean recipient June Huh, a Princeton University mathematics professor and Fields Medal winner in 2022, was also selected as a MacArthur Fellow.

BY HANKIL KANG [kang.hankil@koreadaily.com]