Hannah Phan received her MA from Cornell University's professional studies program for international development in 1998.

Phan had extensive training and experience as a language teacher before she came to Cornell. She studied the pedagogy of teaching a second language in Russia and also in Singapore, she has many years of experience teaching language, including eight years teaching English and Russian in Cambodia, a semester teaching Khmer at Cornell in 1999, three years as a teacher of ESL in the Ithaca City School District, and continues private tutoring of Khmer in the Ithaca area.

She is a native speaker of Khmer, and fluent in English and Russian, with a working knowledge of French. She has a certificate from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), and is an Oral Proficiency Tester in the Khmer language.