Danielle Lee

Danielle N. Lee is an Outreach Scientist who studies animal behavior and behavioral ecology. While completing her dissertation research on individual differences on exploratory behavior of field mice, she mentored several undergraduate and high school students as biology research assistants. She also coordinated ecology outreach programs with nearby public high schools for the Department of Biology at her graduate institution. This included co-coordinating a summer internship research in urban ecology for high school students and an after-school biology club at a nearby public high school. She is currently an assistant professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville studying the behavioral biology and natural history of nuisance rodents across urban gradients. She studies field mice in the Midwest United States and African giant pouched rats in Tanzania, Africa. Lee is passionate about science outreach and is well known for her science promotion and outreach in social media. Lee has a particular focus on science outreach to under-served audiences and is an active member of Animal Behavior Society including the Education and Diversity Committee. Her social media efforts have garnered several accolades from the Huffington Post, Under the Microscope, Black Weblog Awards, and Niche Blogging in Science. Her outreach efforts emphasize sharing science to general audiences, particularly under-served groups, via outdoor programming and social media. She writes about science, research news, and diversity outreach in science, technology, engineering, and math for several online communities and at her blog - The Urban Scientist on the Scientific American Blog Network. She is an avid user of Twitter. Recently, Lee has been honored as a National Geographic Emerging Explorer (2017) and has been named as one of EBONY Magazine’s Power 100, a list of the most influential African Americans. She was also one of ten White House Champions of Change in STEM Diversity and Access in 2014. In 2009 Lee was honored as a Diversity Scholar by the American Institute of Biological Sciences and in 2011 she was named the Young Professional of the Year by the Urban League Young Professionals of Metropolitan St. Louis; and was given the S.T.E.M. Leader Award by the Kansas City Black Family Technology Awareness Association in 2013. Her current science outreach efforts emphasize engagement with broader audiences via science journalism. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers and the National Black Journalists Association. In 2013, Lee helped found the National Science &Technology News Service, a media literacy initiative to bring more science news to African-American audiences and promote science news sources diversity in mainstream media. Lee received a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Missouri at St. Louis, Masters in Vertebrate Zoology from the University of Memphis, and Bachelors in Animal Science from Tennessee Technological University.