Joslynn Lee
Joslynn Lee is an American biochemist and an assistant professor at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado.[1] She established major institutional changes by inspiring a deconstruction of offensive plaques that white-washed the history of violence and ethnocide toward Native students on the college's land.[2]
Early life
Lee grew up in Farmington, New Mexico. She is Native American, identifying as Navajo, Laguna Pueblo, and Acoma Pueblo.[1] When she was young, her grandmother would pick plants to make natural dyes which later inspired Lee to connect her native heritage with science.[3]
Career
In 2014, Jocelynn Lee started as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Minnesota Medical School, during which she volunteered to help analyze their sequencing data. However, she ended up leaving before too long.[4]
Afterwards, she took up a position as a data science educator at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. There, she trained undergraduates to incorporate computational biology and chemistry into their curricula, visiting institutions throughout the United States to train their faculty as well.[4]
Later she joined the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in order to develop an undergraduate research for analyzing microbial communities.[4]
In Fall 2019, Jocelynn Lee became a chemistry professor at Fort Lewis College. In her career, she claims she wishes to encourage use of indigenous languages such as her own, Diné, in the classroom in order to create a safe space for other Native students. She identifies with the six percent of indigenous faculty employed at Fort Lewis, despite almost over half of students also having native ancestors.[5]
Legacy and impact
Joslynn Lee is the first Native American to become a chemistry professor at Fort Lewis College.[2] She has built Howard Hughes Medical Institute courses in general chemistry and biotechnology in her time at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where she developed undergraduate research in microbial communities.[4]
Upon her return to the school, Lee also wrote letters to Fort Lewis College's president about the historical markers that were mounted on the side of a clock tower at the center of campus. They were inscribed with inaccurate information on the history of the college's past as a previous Native American boarding school, and because of Lee the school's administration held over a year of listening sessions before removing them.[6]
Publications
- Bolyen, E.; Rideout, J.R.; Dillon, M.R.; Bokulich, N.A.; Abnet, C.; Al-Ghalith, G.A.; Alexander, H.; Alm, E.J.; Arumugam, M.; Asnicar, F.; et al. (2019) Reproducible, interactive, scalable and extensible microbiome data science using QIIME. doi: 10.1038/s41587-019-0209-9.
- Nat. Biotechnol 37:852-857. 2. Mills, CL, Garg, R., Lee, J.S., Tian, L., Suciu, A., Cooperman, G.D., Beuning, P., Ondrechen, MJ. (2018) Functional classification of protein structures by local structure matching in graph representation. Protein Science. 27(6):1125-1135.
- Zhang, Y., Lee, J.K., Toso, E.A., Lee, J.S., Choi S.H., Slattery, M.G., Aihara, H., Kyba, M. (2016). DNAbinding sequence specificity of DUX4. Skelet Muscle 6(8).
- Loganathan, R., Lee, J.S., Wells, M.B., Slattery, M.G., Andrew, D.J. (2016) Ribbon regulates morphogenesis of the Drosophila embryonic salivary gland through both transcriptional repression and activation. Dev Biol 409(1): 234-250.
- Thomas, R., Lee, JS, Chevalier, V., Selesniemi, K., Hatfield, S., Ondrechen, MJ, Sitkovsky, M, Jones, GB. (2013) Design and evaluation of xanthine based adenosine receptor antagonists: Potential hypoxia targeted immunotherapies. Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry. 21, 23, 7453-7464.
- Wang. Z., Yin, P., Lee. J.S., Parasuram, R., Somarowthu, S., Ondrechen, MJ. (2013) “Protein Function Annotation with Structurally Aligned Local Sites of Activity (SALSAs), BMC Bioinformatics. 14(Suppl 3):S13.
- Parasuram, R., Lee, J. S., Yin, P., Somarowthu, S., Ondrechen, MJ. (2010) Functional Classification of Protein 3D Structures From Predicted Local Interaction Sites. Journal of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. 8, SI1, 1-15.
Awards and recognition
Joslyn Lee was awarded the 2023 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, the Presidential Volunteer Service Award which was granted to her from the White House, the St. Jude’s Hospital National Graduate Student Symposium (NGSS) Speaker, and three different Travel awards.[7]
Personal life
At age 33, Lee was diagnosed with a Chiari malformation and had to get brain surgery. During this procedure, a tumor was found that was removed at a later date.[1]
References
- ^ a b c Donovan, Robin (2024-09-25). "How I apply Indigenous wisdom to Western science and nurture Native American students". Nature. doi:10.1038/d41586-024-03114-w. ISSN 0028-0836.
- ^ a b Sieg, Stina (Dec 28, 2022). "As the U.S confronts its past harm to Indigenous people, a new movement is helping native students take back their education". CPR News.
- ^ "Bridging science and tradition: Dr. Joslynn Lee inspires the next generation of Native scientists | Rocky Mountain PBS". Bridging science and tradition: Dr. Joslynn Lee inspires the next generation of Native scientists. Retrieved 2024-11-18.
- ^ a b c d "Career Ladder: Joslynn Lee". Chemical & Engineering News. Retrieved 2024-11-19.
- ^ Sieg, Stina (3 January 2023). "Once a boarding school, a college now aims to reclaim education for Native people". NPR. Retrieved 15 November 2024.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Sieg, Stina. "New movement helps Native students take back their education". The Journal. Retrieved 2024-12-03.
- ^ "Joslynn Lee | The O.R.G." Retrieved 2024-11-19.