As the Assistant Director of Research, Lee coordinates and supports the research activities of IGWS staff through project and editorial management and active collaborations. Lee is a licensed professional geologist in Indiana and Kentucky with two decades of professional experience in academic, government, and industry jobs. His scholarly activities span the natural sciences as they pertain to the understanding of carbonate aquifers—groundwater that influences the drinking water of one out of every four people on Earth. An avid caver, cartographer, and a certified advanced diver, Lee has visited and surveyed caves in 30 states and several countries in Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean. His current research questions focus on carbon transport in the critical zone, and includes funded research programs in Indiana, Kentucky, Miami, Mt. Rainier, and Romania.

Lee arrived at IGWS after 8 years as tenure line faculty in Kentucky and Indiana. He is a Romania Fulbright Fellow and a USGS Mendenhall Postdoctoral Scholar. He received his PhD from the University of South Florida and his MS from the University of Missouri-Columbia. His undergraduate in Physics and Mathematics is from Western Kentucky University.

Hydrogeology, carbonate geology, cave and karst science (speleology), stable isotope geochemistry, carbon transport in the critical zone, environmental geophysics, geothermal systems