December 22, 2025

Top-25 Identity with Okhee Lee

1 hour 12 minutes

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General Overview

Interview Summary

In an interview on the "Captivate the Room" podcast, Professor Okhee Lee discussed her personal and professional journey, from growing up in a remote South Korean village to becoming a leading academic in STEM education at New York University. She detailed her work focused on multilingual learners, advocating for an asset-based approach that recognizes their inherent capabilities.

A significant portion of the conversation centered on her transformative experience with voice coaching, which she began at age 60. Lee explained how this training helped her overcome layers of self-imposed silence rooted in her cultural background, gender, and profession. She articulated a profound connection between finding her physical voice and claiming her identity, which empowered her to advocate for herself, win numerous awards, and become a more impactful public intellectual.

Interviewee Background

Okhee Lee was a professor in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University. Her expertise was in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education, with a specific focus on promoting equity, justice, and language learning for all students, particularly multilingual learners. Her work involved integrating science, language, and computational thinking to address major societal challenges. She was the recipient of many honors and awards for her contributions to the field.

Key Points

Okhee Lee's work shifted the educational paradigm from viewing multilingual learners through a deficit lens (e.g., "limited English proficient") to an asset-based perspective that values their diverse knowledge and languages.

She advocated for making complex STEM concepts tangible and accessible by grounding them in real-world phenomena, such as studying garbage to understand decomposition and the conservation of matter.

Her personal journey was one of determination, where she had to "beat the system" by earning high test scores to convince her family to let her study in the U.S. instead of getting married.

At age 60, she undertook voice coaching which she described as a profound, identity-shifting experience. It helped her unpack and overcome layers of self-silencing stemming from being an Asian American woman in a male-dominated academic field.

She argued that speaking and listening are fundamental skills that are critically undervalued in society and academia, unlike reading and writing, which often serves to silence certain groups.

Finding her voice physically allowed her to find her voice academically and personally, leading her to assert her right to be recognized for her work and to actively mentor others.

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By Tracy Goodwin

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