Cynthia Lee

Cynthia Lee is interpretive planner for ThincDesign in New York City. She is the former curator and director of exhibitions at the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA), where she led the development of the museum’s core exhibition, With a Single Step: Stories in the Making of America, in its expanded space designed by Maya Lin. Before pursuing her graduate degrees in socio-cultural anthropology from Columbia University, Lee worked for Hong Kong Caritas Refugee Services as a program officer in Hong Kong's Vietnamese refugee camps. Lee brought her experience in international refugee services, oral history research, exhibition development, and graphic design to the museum's collaborative work with local cultural and educational institutions to create a community studies approach to public history and lifelong learning. She has served as a panelist for the New York State Council on the Arts Museum Program; as a field reviewer for the Institute of Museum and Library Services Museums for America Grant Program; and as a board member of the Museum Association of New York. Lee served as a Center LOI panelist in Heritage in 2011 and 2013, and in 2018, she served as a LOI panelist in Exhibitions & Public Interpretation.