Sandra Soo-Jin Lee

Sandra Soo-Jin Lee is Chief of the Division of Ethics and Professor of Medical Humanities and Ethics at Columbia University's Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, where she researches and writes on the ethics of genomics and emerging biotechnologies, the role of race in biomedical research, and how societies govern scientific practice. 

Her work brings together anthropology, history, and ethics, including a current project and forthcoming book, American DNA: Race, Genomics, and the Cultural Politics of Bioethics, which draws on research into the social and ethical dimensions of genomic science over the past three decades. She co-leads the Center for ELSI Resources and Analysis, an NIH-funded center focused on the ethical, legal, and social implications of genomics, and chairs Columbia University's AI Oversight and Governance Committee.

Lee has advised major national genomics initiatives including the NIH-funded Human Pangenome Research Consortium and previously the International HapMap Project. She has served on the Advisory Committee of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary on Human Research Protections. Before Columbia, she spent over 20 years at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics.

She has been a Rockefeller Fellow in the Humanities, a Visiting Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, and a Fellow at the School for Advanced Research.

Lee holds an undergraduate degree in human biology from Stanford University and a doctorate from the joint doctoral program in medical anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.