Ask a Scientist at Physics With a Bang to Feature Ka Yee Lee

At this year’s Physics With a Bang! spectacular at the University of Chicago’s Kersten Physics Teaching Center, you’ll see sights and sounds like no other.

University of Chicago physicists Heinrich Jaeger and Sidney Nagel are at it again as they wow the crowd with their signature lectures that allow students, families, teachers and neighbors to participate in hands-on demonstrations and learn about some of the exciting science going on in the Gordon Center.

This year, C2ST adds to the fun with our third installment of the Ask a Scientist scientist series featuring Professor Ka Yee Lee.

Professor Lee joined C2ST on “The State of Women in Science” panel for our first Women in Science symposium.  She will now use her talents and love for science to help answer some of those burning questions attendees will be lining up to ask.

Lee received her Bachelors and Ph.D. degrees from Brown and Harvard University’s respectively and “has mentored undergraduates and even high-school students in her laboratory almost from the beginning” of her tenure at the University of Chicago’s Chemistry Department.

A natural teacher, Lee “punctuates her lectures with conceptual questions, asking her students collectively to indicate their answers to a multiple-choice selection by a show of hands. This allows Lee to gauge how well the students grasp the new concept just presented in class.”

Of particular research interest for Lee is how a number of diseases result from deficient or abnormal protein-lipid interactions.  Understanding the interactions between proteins and lipids in these case may shed some light on just how these diseases operate, and how to find a cure.

Want to see Dr. Lee in action?  Check out the video…