She received her Ph.D. in Education from Stanford University and an M.A. degree in Linguistics from Yonsei University in Korea. Her research focuses on the educational processes of immigrant children, in particular as they pertain to the understanding of the cultural, sociopolitical, and sociopsychological factors that influence and shape their language learning and development. She is an active member of the American Educational Research Association and the American Association of Applied Linguistics and serves on the editorial board of the International Multilingual Research Journal (Taylor & Francis). Lee also served on the UC LMRI Faculty Steering Committee from 2006-2009. She is a recipient of the Foundation for Child Development Young Scholars Award.