BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Lee is an associate professor of psychology and has been a faculty member at CNU since 2005. Prior to joining CNU, Dr. Lee taught at three different colleges and universities, worked in human resources, and provided counseling and assessment services for several counseling centers and hospitals. Drawing on a rich history of clinical, corporate, and academic experiences, Dr. Lee currently teaches undergraduate courses on the psychology of personality and the psychology of death, dying, and bereavement.  Outside of the classroom, Dr. Lee is passionate about mentoring and supporting students and rising researchers. He enjoys passing along his wisdom, insight, and support to the next generation of promising scholars. A supporter of hospice, Dr. Lee is also an expert panelist and author (i.e., contributed to the Living with Grief Since COVID-19 Book) for the Hospice Foundation of America.   

Many of the students that Dr. Lee has mentored have been very successful during and after their tenure at CNU. Under his guidance, Dr. Lee's lab students have won research awards at national conferences, such as the annual meetings of Sigma Xi (The Scientific Research Honor Society) and the Association for Psychological Science, as well as CNU's excellence in research award. Many of his students have gained acceptances to highly competitive graduate programs in prestigious schools, such as UC Berkeley, University of Maryland, University of Kansas, and the University of Notre Dame. In recognition of his scholarly efforts, Dr. Lee has been awarded the APA’s Teaching of Psychology microgrant for multicultural psychology education (2006), CNU’s deans office grant (2007), CNU’s USRA mentor award (2011), and CNU’s recognition for teaching certificate (2019). 

As a scholar, Dr. Lee provides consultations, webinars, and resources to healthcare workers and researchers through his Coronavirus Anxiety Project and Pandemic Grief Project. He has published 100 journal articles and book chapters on the topics of negative emotions, personality, and scale development. His writings have appeared in respected, peer-reviewed journals, such as Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, Journal of Anxiety Disorders, and Psychiatry Research, as well as in edited books, such as the International Handbook of Behavioral Health Assessment (Springer) and Techniques of Grief Therapy (Routledge). He is the creator of the widely used, Coronavirus Anxiety Scale, Pandemic Grief Scale, Islamophobia Scale, Trait Sympathy Scales, and the recently published, Mass Shootings Anxiety Scale and the Mass Shootings Worry Inventory. He also authored the most read and second most cited paper in the thanatology journal, Death Studies. 

Ranked among the top 3% of the most influential scientists in the ResearchGate community, Dr. Lee is on the American Psychological Association’s expert advisory list for the subject of grief and sits on the editorial boards for the Journal of Clinical and Basic Psychosomatics and Death Studies. He has also been cited or interviewed by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Virginian-Pilot, The Scientific American and The Monitor of Psychology. Dr. Lee has also appeared on Animal Planet’s show Fatal Attractions, Virginia News Channels,  13NewsNow and WAVYTV-10, as well as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's National Radio show, All in the Mind.