Richard M. Lee, Ph.D. is a Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Distinguished University Teaching Professor in the Department of of Psychology at the University of Minnesota. He was the Melvin and Gertrude Waldfogel Scholar of the College for 2020-2023 and served as the Director of the the Asian American Studies Program from 2022-2024.
Dr. Lee’s research focuses broadly on the cultural, racial, ethnic, and migration experiences of youth and families from racially minoritized backgrounds. He is specifically interested in how Asian youth and families in the United States and overseas in other countries individually and collectively experience and respond to living in a racialized environment, focusing on determinants and outcomes of ethnic-racial identity development, acculturation and acculturative stress, racism and discrimination, ethnic-racial socialization, and culture-specific parenting across generations. To do this work, he employ top-down and bottom-up approaches to quantitative and qualitative research. He is increasingly drawn toward a more interdisciplinary, international, and collaborative approach to doing this work.
Professor Lee was born and raised in Connecticut. He is the youngest of three sons raised by immigrant parents from South Korea. He is a first-generation college student and attended Simon’s Rock College of Bard, Boston College (B.A.), and Virginia Commonwealth University (Ph.D.), followed by a predoctoral internship and postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Davis. He previously taught at the University of Texas, Austin before moving to Minnesota in 2000.
Professor Lee is a fellow of APA Division 17 (Society of Counseling Psychology) and Division 45 (Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity and Race) and the Asian American Psychological Association. He is a founding member of the Asian Caucus (chair 2019-2021) of the Society for Research on Child Development and a founding member of the Diversity Committee of the Society for Research on Adolescence. From 2011-2013, he served as President of the Asian American Psychological Association. He is a past Editor for Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology (2015-2019). His research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.
Balancing work and personal life is important. Outside of Elliott Hall (home of the Department of Psychology), Professor Lee enjoys cooking, watching sports (especially the Timberwolves), karaoke with friends, local arts events, outdoors activities (camping, canoeing, and fishing), playing sports with his boys, and spending his evenings with his family (i.e., not doing work). He lives in Minneapolis with his wife who is an assistant professor in the genetic counseling program, two teenage sons, his artist father, two cats, and one dog.
Dr. Deborah B. Yoon
Dr. Deborah B. Yoon is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Her research explores how people understand and communicate about their identities, especially in complex or nontraditional family experiences such as adoption and infertility.
Dr. Yoon’s work focuses on how individuals navigate uncertainty about who they are and where they come from, and how communication with others—such as family members, partners, and communities—shapes those experiences. Her research has examined topics such as identity uncertainty among adopted individuals, communication about genetic health history, and relational dynamics during major life transitions.
Through collaborative, interdisciplinary projects, Dr. Yoon aims to make research more accessible and meaningful beyond academia, helping to inform conversations about family, health, and identity in everyday life.
Dr. Oh Myo Kim
Dr. Jae-In Kim
Jae Kim, Ph.D. (they/them) is an adoption scholar and a transracially, transnationally, adopted Korean American. Their work examines the lived experiences of adopted individuals throughout adulthood, including identity, solidarity, and family. Their present work examines (1) how adopted individuals experience estrangement from members of their adoptive families, (2) how adopted individuals develop adoption-related critical consciousness - aka, coming out of the fog, and (3) how adopted individuals navigate experiences of discrimination and identity development. As a FamiLee Lab graduate (Ph.D. 2020) and collaborator, Jae has been involved in the Korean Adoption Project since Wave 2 (2014). Jae is now an assistant professor of psychology at Elon University.
Growing up as a Korean adoptee in Minnesota, Jae spent their formative years surrounded by other Korean adoptees in their local community and through events such as Korean Culture Camp. Returning to MN for graduate school at University of Minnesota, Jae’s adoption work extended beyond the lab, taking on roles such as a steering committee member of Network of Politicized Adoptees and presenting at community conferences such as KAAN.
Ruth Babich
Ruth is a Chinese adoptee from Hubei who grew up in Massachusetts. She is a doctoral student in the University of Minnesota’s Counseling Psychology program, with research interests in socialization processes and how they shape identity development and mental health. Outside of her academic work, she enjoys painting, cooking, and occasionally writing poetry.