With a deep interest in co-curricular support, student success, and diversity, Dr. Walter C. Lee is on a mission to ensure that institutions are providing all students with the support to succeed in engineering, regardless of the student’s background. Dr. Lee’s career vision is to be a driving force in the national effort to diversify engineering and ensure that institutions provide students with the necessary support to succeed regardless of their background. 

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When most people think about engineering, they hardly consider the extent to which engineering is done for people and by people.  Dr. Lee knew very early that he wanted to merge his interest in the technical aspects of engineering with a deeper look at the surrounding educational and social systems. 

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Through his own experiences as an industrial engineering student at Clemson University, Dr. Lee saw firsthand how co-curricular support programs, such as Clemson’s Programs for Educational Enrichment and Retention (PEER), were vital to his own success and that of many other students. Upon graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering and a minor in Sociology, his passion for initiatives such as PEER led him to Virginia Tech where he earned a Masters of Science in Industrial & Systems Engineering and a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Engineering Education.

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After completing his Ph.D. in 2015, Dr. Lee joined the faculty of Virginia Tech’s Department of Engineering Education. In addition to his role as Associate Professor of Engineering Education, he serves as the Director of Research for the Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Diversity (CEED) where he has impacted hundreds of incoming and undergraduate students enrolled in CEED programs. Soon after, Dr. Lee began leading research and founded GUIDE (Growing in our Understanding of Inclusive Diversity in Engineering). Through GUIDE, Lee and his graduate students are committed to enriching the experiences of people from marginalized and historically underrepresented groups.