Her research focuses on the role of Japan in twentieth and twenty-first century science and technology. Her current book project looks at Japanese society’s engagement with microbes in science, industry, and environmental management. It explores why fermentation expanded beyond small-scale traditional manufactures to take special prominence in food, resources, and medicine in Japan, addressing scientists’ and technicians’ role in defining the texture of everyday life and material culture as an aspect of political economy. Lee received her Ph.D. in history of science from Princeton University, and spent 2014-16 as a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Germany.