Naomi Lee, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator

Dr. Naomi Lee is a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Northern Arizona University. She is also an affiliated faculty member to the NIH-funded Southwest Health Equity Research Collaborative (SHERC), the NIH-funded Native American Cancer Prevention (NACP) partnership, and NAU’s Center for Materials Interfaces in Research and Applications (¡MIRA!). Her research focuses on novel vaccine development using self-assembling peptides and virus-like particles (VLPs) to target various sexually transmitted infections. Dr. Lee also applies her expertise in biomedical research to improve the health care of American Indians and Alaska Natives through health disparities research, STEM education, and mentoring.

​

Dr. Lee received a B.S. in biochemistry from Rochester Institute of Technology. She also completed an M.S. and Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Rochester. Her thesis was titled, Factors that Influence the Self-assembly of Amphipathic β-Sheet Peptides. It encompassed numerous studies involving (FKFE)2 – derived amphipathic peptides and the development of novel amyloid-like biomaterials.

​

After completing her doctoral degree, Dr. Lee was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) from 20013-2015. She was mentored by Dr. Steven Jacobson, senior investigator of the viral immunology section. There her research focused on treatment and detection of human herpesvirus-6 (HHV-6). HHV-6 is a ubiquitous herpesvirus with a seroprevalence greater than 90% in the adult population. It is implicated in certain rare neurological diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS). While a fellow in NINDS, Dr. Lee has also completed an Institutional Review Board (IRB) internship in the Bioethics Department of the NIH clinical center.

​

From 2015-2018, Dr. Lee was an NIH Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Award (IRACDA) postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at the University of New Mexico. She wa s mentored by Dr. Bryce Chackerian. Her projects focused on chemical modification of virus-like particles (VLP) and development of potential Neisseria gonorrhoeae vaccine candidates using VLPs to display peptide libraries. As an IRACDA fellow, Dr. Lee taught general chemistry lab at a partnering tribal college, Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute.

​

Dr. Lee was also accepted into the NIH-funded Native Investigator Development Program through Washington State University and the University of Colorado Denver. Her projects in the two-year cohort (2016-2018) focused on human papillomavirus (HPV) prevalence and risk factors within the American Indians of the Great Plains. She also conducted a study to evaluate the knowledge and attitudes of American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) professionals and students in the health and STEM fields toward HPV and the vaccine.

​

Dr. Lee is involved with various scientific and professional societies including the American Chemical Society (ACS), Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) and the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES). In 2012, she was honored with the AISES lifetime Sequoyah fellowship, sponsored by her tribe, the Seneca Nation of Indians. Dr. Lee was also awarded the 2018 AISES Professional of the Year award.

​

Dr. Lee continues to be involved in mentoring programs aimed at increasing the representation of AIANs in STEM. Details of her role in tailoring the NIH summer internship program are discussed in a manuscript titled “Refining a biomedical summer research program for American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) students” in the International Journal of Designs for Learning. Dr. Lee and her colleagues are collaborating on a second project titled, “Cultural identity central to Native American persistence in science.” This study involves evaluating AIAN students from various biomedical summer internship programs across the country.

​

Finally, in 2009, Dr. Lee joined the Army National Guard. Currently, she is a Captain in the Army Reserves assigned to the 322nd Civil Affairs Brigade in Honolulu, HI.