Okhee Lee

Okhee Lee (born 1959) is an American education scholar and professor of childhood education.

Okhee Lee is a professor of childhood education at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

Lee is involved in establishing equity and justice in the education of STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) for all K-12 students, including students learning English as an additional language, referred to as English learners by the U.S. Department of Education.

She is an author of five books and more than 130 refereed journal articles on educational research, policy and practice.

Lee is ranked as one of the most influential educational academics in the U.S. by Ed-Scholar Public Influence Rankings published by Education Week.

Lee holds a Ph.D. from Michigan State University, where in 2022 she received an Honorary Doctor of Humanities degree and delivered a keynote speech at the Baccalaureate Commencement Ceremony.

She began her career at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, and rose to professor in the school of education.

Lee endowed student scholarships in memory of her late husband at New York University, Michigan State University, University of Miami, and the Korean-American Educational Research Association.

Lee’s first two decades of research, starting in the early 1990s, established her as a leader in science education and equity.

With funding from the NSF and the U.S. Department of Education, her research grew to large-scale intervention studies to promote science learning for English learners across the four largest school districts in Florida.

In 2011, Lee joined New York University, where she is a professor and principal investigator of the NYU SAIL Research Lab.

With funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the SAIL team develops elementary school curriculum materials and teacher professional development resources that support science learning, language learning, and computational thinking for all students, including English learners.

Lee’s recent publications call for collaboration among educators, scholars, and policymakers to ensure that English language proficiency standards are used in a conceptually sound and practically feasible manner.

Lee was named to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) writing team and was leader of the NGSS Diversity and Equity Team from 2011 to 2013.

At the same time, she was a member of the steering committee for the Understanding Language Initiative at Stanford University.

The NSF named Lee to its Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering (CEOSE) in 2024.

With Helen Quinn and Guadalupe Valdés, Lee produced a study on science and language for English language learners in relation to NGSS.

The AERA invited Lee to discuss the significance of her 2013 study, “Science and Language for English Language Learners in Relation to Next Generation Science Standards and with Implications for Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Mathematics,” co-authored with Quinn and Valdés, in a published video.

The New York State Education Department collaborated with Lee, whose work contributed to the NYS P-12 Science Learning Standards adopted in December 2016.

Lee and her research team created the “Science Initiative,” a series of webinars and briefs released in 2021 that serve as instructional resources for teachers to promote implementation of the standards and equitable opportunities for English language learners and other multilingual learners.

The AERA invited Lee to discuss the significance of her 2019 study, “Aligning English Language Proficiency Standards with Content Standards: Shared Opportunity and Responsibility Across English Learner Education and Content Areas,” in a published video.

Her research: