ANZACA - Invited Speaker - Associate Professor Lisa Lee

Dr. Lee is an Associate Professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine (CUSOM), Department of Cell and Developmental Biology. She is the course director for Human Histology, Human Embryology, and Advanced Teaching in Anatomical Sciences courses in the Master of Science in Modern Human Anatomy (MSMHA) program and lecturer for all embryology content for Human Body Block in the CUSOM. On average, she mentors and advises approximately 20 graduate and medical students each year, on their educational resource development and research projects to advance students’ personal and professional development, as well as the anatomical sciences field through their contributions. She received Excellence in Teaching Award from the Ohio State University in 2008, and Chancellor’s Teaching Recognition Award from the CUSOM in 2015, and numerous nominations for mentoring awards from the University of Colorado.

She is a founding member and an administrator of the Digital Histology Interest Group in the American Association for Anatomy (AAA), and the co-creator and administrator of the Virtual Microscopy Database (VMD: http://virtualmicroscopydatabase.org). The VMD, funded by the Innovation Program of the AAA and MBF Biosciences, is the world’s largest repository of virtual tissue slides donated from over 18 international institutions and serves over a thousand educators, clinicians, and researchers across the globe.

Before joining CUSOM in 2012, Dr. Lee taught gross anatomy, histology, and embryology at the Ohio State University between 2008 to 2012. Between 2006 to 2008, she taught autopsy techniques, surgical pathology, histology, and gross anatomy to pathology residents and medical students in the Department of Pathology at the Creighton University. During her time in Pathology, Dr. Lee performed over 200 autopsies, processed thousands of surgical specimens and received board certification as a Pathologists’ Assistant from American Society for Clinical Pathology. She credits her clinical experience in pathology for her ability to integrate a variety of disciplines and clinical relevance in her teaching. Dr. Lee has served on Professional Development and Educational Affairs Committees of AAA and is a current Councilor-at-Large for American Association of Clinical Anatomists (AACA). She has also served on the Step I National Dental Board Exam Construction Committee for over six years as a histology expert.

Dr. Lee completed her Ph.D. in biological implications of tumour cell plasticity under the guidance of Dr. Mary J.C. Hendrix, Ph.D., in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. She is originally from Seoul, South Korea but has lived over half of her life in the Mid-Western United States, completing her undergraduate studies at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. Her interview on the Anatomy Education Podcast expands on her pathway to anatomy education (http://anatomypodcast.co.uk/episodes/dr-lisa-lee/).