Rachel Jihye Han is a poet, composer, classically trained violinist, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist based in New York City. Her work braids together the ancient and futuristic, classical and experimental, and sacred and profane.

A 2023 MacDowell Fellow, 2023 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow, 2022 Hawthornden Castle Fellow, and 2025 Synth Library NYC Resident, her work has appeared in Narrative, Pleiades, Interim, Conduit, Spectra, the LA Korea Times, and elsewhere. She performs and releases music under the name ‘Hiera Jihye.’

Her debut poetry collection, I AM RETURNING FOR THE BODY, won the 2024 Gatewood Prize (Switchback Books) and was shortlisted for the Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize (2022 & 2023), and Futurepoem Open (2022).

She received her MFA in Poetry from Rutgers University-Newark where she currently teaches English and Poetry, and has taught workshops for the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and New Jersey Performing Arts Center.