Stephen Lee (chemist)

Stephen Lee (born 25 October 1955) is an American chemist. He is the son of Tsung-Dao Lee, the winner of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics. He is currently a professor at Cornell University.

Lee attended Yale University, and graduated with a BA in 1978. He later received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1985.

In 1994, Lee received the MacArthur Award for his work in the field of physics and chemistry. In addition, he has received an award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for his continued research.

In 1999, Lee joined Cornell University as a professor of solid state chemistry in the chemistry and chemical biology department from the University of Michigan, where he had been associate professor of chemistry since 1993 and where he had been recognized as both a MacArthur and a Sloan fellow. He was also a visiting scientist at Cornell in 1995.

He currently continues his teaching career at Cornell, where he instructs students in (honors) general chemistry and introduction to chemistry courses. During the past two years, Lee has devoted his summer to helping incoming freshmen learn basic chemistry to prepare them for the academic year. This has been considered part of Lee's philanthropic work, as he teaches these summer courses probono.

His current research involves developing stronger porous solids in which all the host porous bonds are covalent in character. Lee is also researching ways to introduce cross-linkable guests (such as di-isocyanides or disilyltriflates) which will react with nucleophilic groups, leading to a fully covalent organic porous solid. He also hopes to develop a long range order in intermetallic phases: Examine noble metal alloys where unit cell dimensions range from just a few, to almost 104 Å.

Stephen Lee was born to Nobel Prize winner Tsung-Dao Lee (T.D. Lee, Chinese: 李政道; pinyin: Lǐ Zhèngdào) and Hui-Chun Jeannette Chin (Chinese: 秦惠莙; pinyin: Qín Huìjūn), who died in 1996. Lee has one brother, James Lee (1952-), who is the Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Chair Professor of the Division of Social Science at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. James also graduated from Yale University and the University of Chicago.