Sarah Jaewon Lee

Sarah Jaewon Lee is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Vanderbilt University.1 Her specialization is in Learning and Design, and her advisor is Noel Enyedy.1 Sarah's research interests include STEM education, out-of-school time (OST) learning, early and middle childhood education, and multilingual learners.1

Before pursuing her Ph.D. at Vanderbilt, Sarah worked as a Research and Advisory Associate at a children's museum in the San Francisco Bay Area.1 In this role, she contributed to publications on STEM, the benefits of play, and technology in early childhood education. She also worked on state and national grant-funded projects, such as developing resources for librarians based on school readiness research.1

Sarah earned her B.A. in Linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania before deciding to return to academia to combine her passions for language, education, and equity.1 During her time between undergraduate studies and her Ph.D. program, she served on the board of directors for Next Generation Scholars, a non-profit college access program for low-income students of color.1

As of September 2024, Sarah is listed as an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington College of Education.3 This suggests that she completed her Ph.D. at Vanderbilt University between August 2019 and August 2024.3

Sarah's research has been cited in academic publications, with at least 19 citations to her work.2 She has also co-authored research papers, including a recent publication on researcher-teacher co-design in a mixed-reality science and computational thinking curriculum.5

Personal Background

Sarah Lee currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee while pursuing her Ph.D., although her family still lives in her childhood home.4 Her academic journey has taken her from the University of Pennsylvania for her undergraduate studies to Vanderbilt University for her doctoral work, with a stint at University College London, University of London, in between.