Faculty Deans

Shirley Lee and Taeku Lee

Photo Credit: Amy Perl, amyperl.com

We are thrilled to be your new Dunster House Faculty Deans! The house system is one of Harvard’s genuine treasures, and we are honored to be a part of it. We’re looking forward to getting to know as many Meese as we can in the coming year. For now, here’s a little bit about us.

Taeku (he/him) is a political scientist and Bae Family Professor in the Government Department. Born off an army base in Masan, South Korea, he spent nine years in rural parts of Malaysia and immigrated to the US when he was 11. Taeku returns to Harvard after twenty years at UC Berkeley in Political Science and at the Law School. His teaching and research interests are in racial and ethnic politics, public opinion and survey research, identity and inequality, and democratic politics. (He narrowly averted his immigrant destiny to become a physician, called to political science after finishing nearly three years of medical school at the University of Michigan.) In his free time, he is a crossword enthusiast, tennis junkie, and a diehard fan of the Michigan Wolverines, Golden State Warriors, and Tottenham Hotspurs.

Shirley (she/her) started out teaching middle school mathematics in NYC where she became interested in how students integrate new information into a pre-existing knowledge base. This led her down the path of education research, including a long stint at the Education Development Center (EDC) in Newton, MA, which supported districts around the country. In California, she worked as a program evaluator in the Center for Research, Evaluation and Assessment (REA) at UC Berkeley, focusing on how kids make meaning within different environments, such as a science lab, a museum exhibit, or a robotics team. She then took time off work to focus on family, volunteer in the community and manage a series of home remodels that grew into an interest in art and design. Shirley enjoys tennis, travel and history, and loves spending time with friends old and new. She is currently working on a personal research project that involves transcribing interviews from family members about their experiences during the Korean War.

We are proud parents of two adult children, Ella and Linus Lee. Ella graduated a year ago from UCLA (English, Creative Writing, and Asian American Studies), and Linus just graduated from WashU St. Louis (Computer Science, Urban Studies, Music). They both love making music and being in the great outdoors, from backpacking the Sierras to running in the redwoods. We hope they will have a chance to meet some of you this year. We are also proud parents of a 7-year-old calico cat named Daisy who is a true scaredy cat, but a loving one. Coax her out of the shadows if you can—she loves cheek and chin scratches!