Earl Lee

Scholar-practitioner-advocate. I am a passionate advocate for equity, inclusion, and social justice. Having spent 13 years in higher education, I currently serve as the DEIB Officer at ASU's Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation. I lead initiatives to foster a sense of belonging towards health equity outcomes. To this role, I bring my expertise in developing culturally responsive education and training, facilitating crucial conversations on a range of DEIB topics, and building partnerships to advance inclusion and belonging for diverse student and employee populations. My approach centers on eliminating systemic barriers and fostering a culture where all students can thrive. They have led key projects on inclusive curriculum design, mentoring programs for underrepresented groups, and policy review through an equity lens. 

I am also a doctorate student in Justice Studies at the School of Social Transformation at ASU. My interdisciplinary research critically examines the intersections of race, equity, social justice, cultural representation, and imaginative futures, especially for marginalized populations in STEM and health education contexts. My scholarship is grounded in qualitative inquiry and aims to center and amplify minoritized voices through innovative, participatory methodologies. My research agenda includes analyzing cultural narratives and imagining transformative futures for health education, ethical integration of emerging technologies to advance equity, and unpacking representations of race/identity in speculative fiction using critical theoretical frameworks. This multifaceted inquiry ultimately seeks to build more just, equitable, and radically reimagined futures across educational spaces and society.

My doctoral dissertation explores how Black futurist science fiction can inform changes in STEM higher education to better serve Black students. Focusing on Nnedi Okorafor's Binti novella series, the research examines the liberatory visions, transformed social structures, and critiques of existing systems that emerge from Okorafor's worldbuilding and Black radical imagination. The central question asks how these speculative narratives can guide pedagogical and curricular reforms aligned with design justice principles to empower Black STEM students, affirm their identities, and foster greater belonging.