Prior to her arrival at the UA in fall 2003, she served as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she obtained her M.A. and Ph.D.

 

Her research encompasses a range of key higher education issues that center on the role of individual and collective values in shaping the culture and ultimately the practices of higher institutions and its students. She has examined faculty, institutional, and disciplinary cultures and their roles in promoting student success. Dr. Lee has also examined student engagement with their learning outside the immediate classroom, such as in service learning and outreach, activism, collective bargaining, and religious and spiritual pursuits.  Most of Dr. Lee's recent research has been on international higher education, including international student access to higher education, regional international mobility, and experiences of neo-racism in host countries.

 

Dr. Lee has authored and co-authored over 40 publications in these research areas. Her articles have appeared in the top journals of higher education, including Higher Education, Research in Higher Education, Review of Higher Education, Journal of Higher Education, Journal of College Student Development, Harvard Educational Review, and others.  Dr. Lee has been recognized and awarded by the American College Personnel Association as an Emerging Scholar, and an Erasmus Scholar by the UA College of Education. She is also the 2009 recipient of the Outstanding Faculty Award by the Asian American Faculty, Staff & Alumni Association at the University of Arizona.  She was recently recognized as one of the nation's top emerging scholars by Diverse Issues in Higher Education.

 

Dr. Lee has served as an Honorary Invited Scholar in Korea University and Honorary Visiting Scholar in City University, London.