Yeon-Shim Lee

Biography

Yeon-Shim Lee, Ph.D., ACSW, Professor, received her undergraduate degree from Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea with a major in Social Work and a minor in Law; her Masters of Social Welfare from Yonsei University and Michigan State University; and her Ph.D. from Columbia University School of Social Work in New York City, with an emphasis on Social Policy Planning and Policy Analysis and Economics. She has received rigorous post Ph.D. training in the multidisciplinary field of gerontology as well as epidemiology, including a 2-year post-Ph.D. Geriatric Faculty Training at the University of California at San Francisco (Internal Medicine) and National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). She is a National Institute on Aging (NIA) Scholar on Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research (RCMAR). For the last 13 years, Dr. Lee’s research has focused on geriatric care, health/mental health disparities, intergenerational transmission of violence and trauma across the life course, substance use, acculturation, and sociocultural health/mental health interventions among diverse racial/ethnic populations. Over 15 years, her social work practice experience includes a wide range of social services, such as NGO executive director, activist/lobbyist for youths at risk and immigrants, mental health counselor, mental health rehabilitation specialist, case manager, and vocational rehabilitation trainer while working mainly with people with mental health conditions, violence, trauma, and/or alcohol/drug use. She has extensively taught and worked both in the U.S. and South Korea. Dr. Lee had been a lecturer at Columbia University School of Social Work for three years, then joined San Francisco State University as a faculty since 2005.