Jim Lee Born in South Korea, and raised along the U.S. East Coast, the Rev. Dr. Jim Lee currently resides in Irvine, California, and serves as an assisting priest at Church of the Messiah. Jim grew up in the Reformed tradition, but discerned in the late 1990s to join the Episcopal Church. He was ordained to the diaconate in June 2012 and the priesthood in January 2013. Jim received a Master of Divinity degree from the Claremont School of Theology, where he received the Presidential Award for Academic Excellence; in addition he completed coursework through the Episcopal Theological School at Claremont, where he was the recipient of the Excellence in the Study of Theology and Ethics Award, the Excellence in the Study of the First (Old) Testament Award, and the Highest Academic Achievement Award.
Jim is also Chair and Associate Professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Irvine. He received a Ph.D. in English and an M.A. in Asian American Studies from UCLA, and is an alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania, where he majored in English. Jim is the author of several academic articles, as well as a book titled Urban Triage: Race and the Fictions of Multiculturalism, published by the University of Minnesota Press in 2004. He is currently working on a book project on memoir, race, and illness in the contemporary United States.
Jim is married to Julie Cho and has two daughters, Sona and Jihae. He enjoys reading, cooking, listening to podcasts, and running. He has run three marathons and several half marathons but refuses to disclose how glacially slow his run times are.