Professor and Head
University of Connecticut
Dr. Ji-Young Lee is a Professor and Head of the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Connecticut in the US. She earned BS and MS in Foods and Nutrition from Kyung Hee University in South Korea; and MS and PhD in nutrition from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Lee received postdoctoral training in the Department of Pathology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, studying the role of ABC transporters in HDL metabolism. Lee is a Fellow of the American Heart Association and the American College of Nutrition. Lee’s research focuses on identifying molecular mediators involved in energy metabolism and inflammatory/fibrogenic signaling pathways; and how dietary factors, such as blue-green algae, berries, carotenoids, and NAD precursors, play regulatory roles in the pathogenesis of non-alcoholic fatty disease and alcoholic hepatitis using molecular techniques and bioenergetics tools in cell and animal models. Also, she uses cell type-specific deletion of class II histone deacetylases, including histone deacetylase 4 and 9, to determine their role in energy metabolism and inflammatory/fibrogenic signaling pathways in the setting of obesity or alcohol consumption.