Philosopher, Educator, and Social Scientist

Ka Ya Lee is an empirically engaged philosopher trained in quantitative & qualitative research methods.

I am a philosopher of education by training, and I currently work as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University.

I study the issues of educational justice, and I received the Presidential Scholarship from Harvard University and the McPherson Fellowship from the Center for Ethics & Education at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

My research topic ranges from the aim(s) of education, the informational basis of education policymaking, and universal pre-K to children's rights and moral status. My paper on justice and universal pre-K received an outstanding graduate student paper award for the American Educational Research Association's 2023 Annual Meeting. I was also awarded a summer and spring fellowship by PESGB (Philosophy of Education Society Great Britain) to present and workshop the paper at their 2024 Annual Meeting.

As an empirical researcher and a Co-Principal Investigator of the National Ethics Project, I study ethics education in American higher education, particularly in undergraduate Computer Science and Engineering programs.

As a primary instructor at Harvard Graduate School of Education, I taught a course on the aims of education. I have also worked as a Teaching Assistant for classes on philosophy of education, ethical consideration of public health policies, applied data science, and developmental psychology.