When Dr. Karen An-Hwei Lee was a first-grader, she enjoyed writing and illustrating chapbooks under the instruction of a “wonderful teacher” who guided her creativity as she produced books about butterflies and seeds. “I’ve been writing ever since,” she says. “I started keeping journals; writing letters.”
But as a member of a family of scientists, the Massachusetts native attended a high school with a nationally competitive science program and entered Brown University as a pre-med biochemistry major. Nevertheless, her passion for writing prevailed. She enrolled in one creative writing workshop after another.
“I kept returning to my love for writing. …This work culminated in an honors thesis,” she recalls of her years at Brown, where she went on to earn her bachelor’s in literary arts and an M.F.A. in creative writing. Lee earned a Ph.D. in literature in 2001 from the University of California, Berkeley, where she was the recipient of a coveted Cota-Robles Fellowship in English.
As a full professor at Vanguard University, Lee heads the English Department and co-leads the university’s diversity committee.
