R. May Lee has been named the third president of Olin College of Engineering in Needham, Massachusetts. The college enrolls about 400 undergraduate students, 46 percent of whom are women. Dr. Lee is slated to take the helm of Olin College on August 18.
With extensive experience in education, corporate leadership, and entrepreneurship, President Lee comes to her new role from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, where she was a professor of entrepreneurship and vice president and chief strategy officer for institutional impact. While there, she oversaw the development and implementation of RPI Forward, the institution’s long-term strategic plan.
Earlier in her career, President Lee was founding dean of the School of Entrepreneurship and Management at Shanghai Tech University in China. She also had a stint as vice chancellor at New York University, where she developed NYU Shanghai, the university’s degree-granting campus in China. In the private sector, she previously served as a partner at The Seelig Group, an investment firm focused on media and technology.
“I am incredibly honored to be chosen to lead Olin College as its next president,” said President Lee. “I am an engineer at heart, if not by training. My career has been defined by building — whether it’s organizations, strategies, products, or teams. Along the way, I’ve immersed myself in new industries, carrying forward insights from one sector to the next and using them as fuel for innovation in each new context. I am inspired by Olin’s mission and its people, and its resolute dedication to constant innovation, and look forward to leading this exceptional institution into the future. I am grateful to the Olin board and the search committee for their thorough, thoughtful process, and I am eager to get started.”
President Lee received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and her juris doctorate from New York University.