Tommy Lee

Tommy Lee joined the Department of Neuroscience and Behavior at Barnard College of Columbia University in 2026. Born and raised in New York City, he returns home after training as a behavioral neuroscientist and building a career centered on inclusive, evidence-based science teaching.

Professor Lee's research examines how the hippocampus supports the spatial, temporal, and social features of episodic memory—how we remember where events happened, when they happened, and who was there. The social side of that question extends into his work on the neurobiology of pair bonding in socially monogamous prairie voles, where he has examined how natural variation in the oxytocin receptor gene shapes social behavior. He works closely with undergraduates on this research, and students who begin with no lab experience often graduate as conference presenters and co-authors on peer-reviewed publications.

Professor Lee brings the same science into his teaching, translating principles from learning and memory research into evidence-based classroom practice that helps students learn in ways that last and build confidence in their own thinking. His chapter "Neuroscience of Learning for AI-Enhanced Teaching," in The Oxford Handbook of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education, argues that generative AI is neither good nor bad for learning in itself. What matters is whether a given use preserves the cognitive work that produces learning or replaces that work with a finished product. He also co-facilitates Coding with Allen Institute Data, an annual Python workshop held at the Institute in Seattle that prepares undergraduate neuroscience faculty to bring open datasets and computational analysis into their own classrooms.

A first-generation college graduate from a Taiwanese immigrant family, Professor Lee designs courses that reduce barriers without compromising rigor, and works to change who sees themselves in science.

Previously, Professor Lee held an NIH-IRACDA FIRST Postdoctoral Fellowship at Emory University, where he also taught at Spelman and Morehouse Colleges. He was an inaugural Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in Neuroscience and Behavior at the University of Notre Dame and a MAHPING Pedagogy Fellow at Harvard Medical School and Morehouse School of Medicine. He earned his PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience from the University of Connecticut.
At Barnard, Professor Lee teaches core courses for the Neuroscience and Behavior major, including Laboratory in Neuroscience, as well as upper-level electives such as Neuroscience of Learning and Memory, and Neuroscience of Love.