Please join us in welcoming Grace S. Lee, the Asian American / Asian Research Institute’s new Research Programs Director, whose work will support the AAARI’s growing research portfolio and deepen our commitment to advancing knowledge about AANHPI communities.
Grace has worked in research and evaluation (with a focus on community-based participatory action research), organizational needs assessments/strategic planning/capacity building, program planning and implementation, grant writing, curriculum design, and training facilitation for over two decades with nonprofits, government agencies, and international aid organizations in the U.S., Asia, and Latin America, with a focus on historically underserved immigrants and communities of color.
Her experience includes launching and overseeing a $23M COVID program for people experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles County, leading research on Korean Brazilians in São Paulo, managing cannabis policy research for the health department, serving as the managing editor of a NYC-based global arts/politics publication, advocating for policy change as the coordinator of the L.A. County Opiate Overdose Task Force, supporting tobacco policy research and cancer research on AANHPI communities, evaluating a youth peer education program at an indigenous reproductive health NGO in Guatemala, managing NIH-funded research on substance use, etc.
She is a first-generation college graduate who earned a M.A./M.P.H. in Latin American studies and public health from UCLA and a B.A. in anthropology from Smith College and attended a music conservatory in Venezuela.
