Dr. Lee is an Associate Professor at the University of Houston His research focuses on quantifying and characterizing terrestrial water dynamics using satellite remote sensing data and modeling toward improving water resources management. His recent research interests include developing innovative flood forecasting system using satellite observations. He is also interested in predicting streamflow and other hydrologic variables over poorly gauged or “geopolitically” ungauged basins using satellite observations and modeling toward sustainable water resources management and food risk mitigation in transboundary river basins.

Dr. Lee’s group recently developed an innovative approach for forecasting inundation extent utilizing all-weather spaceborne radar images with historical and forecasted discharges from a rainfall-runoff model. This technique is named Forecasting Inundation Extents using Rotated Empirical Orthogonal Function (FIER). The developed method has been demonstrated for the Mekong Basin in Southeast Asia. Dr. Lee’s group is currently working on applying FIER to urban flooding using Houston as a test-bed.

Dr. Lee holds a PhD degree in Geodetic Science from Ohio State University and he is the recipient of the NASA New Investigator Award in 2014. He has several publications highlighted as most cited articles. Dr. Lee is a member of the NASA Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive, the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Congo Basin Water Resources Research, the Steering Committee of the International Association of Geodesy Sub-commission 2.5 Satellite Altimetry, and the Chair of the International Association of Geodesy Sub-commission 4.4, WG4.4.4: Retracking Algorithms for Land Altimetry.