Hedwig Lee


Professor of Sociology

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Professor Lee also is the director of undergraduate studies in Arts & Sciences and associate director of the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, & Equity.

She is broadly interested in the social determinants and consequences of population health and health disparities, with a particular focus on race/ethnicity, poverty, race-related stress, and the family.

Hedwig (Hedy) received her PhD in Sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2009. After receiving her PhD, she was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar at the University of Michigan from 2009 to 2011. She holds a courtesy joint appointment at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at WashU and is a Faculty Affiliate in the Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She currently serves on the research advisory board for the Vera Institute of Justice and the board for the Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science. She also is a member of The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, Committee on Population. Her recent work examines the impact of structurally rooted chronic stressors, such as mass incarceration, on health and health disparities.

In the media

Stories

How racial violence affects Black Americans’ mental health

How racial violence affects Black Americans’ mental health

Black Americans experience an increase in poor mental health days during weeks when two or more incidents of anti-Black violence occur and when national interest surrounding the events is higher, according to new research involving a researcher at Washington University in St. Louis.
Lee twice recognized as leader in field

Lee twice recognized as leader in field

Hedwig Lee, professor of sociology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, was elected to the prestigious Sociological Research Association. Lee also was appointed to the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine’s ad hoc committee, “Best Practices for Implementing Decarceration as a Strategy to Mitigate the Spread of COVID-19 in Correctional Facilities.”
It’s time for change

It’s time for change

Three esteemed Arts & Sciences faculty members discuss the social movement against police brutality taking place across the nation and the world, and its implications for teaching, research and higher education.
Rallying point

Rallying point

In 2015, Washington University re-established the Department of Sociology in Arts & Sciences. Concentrating on the origins and impacts of inequality, faculty and students are investigating some of the nation’s most critical and urgent social challenges.