Faculty Fellow
Assistant Professor of History, Department of Humanities, NYU Shanghai
Project: The Chop Suey Corridor: How U.S. Immigration Law Fueled a Chinese Restaurant Boom in New York City, 1870-1946
Heather Ruth Lee is an assistant professor of history at NYU Shanghai. She is completing a book on the history of Chinese restaurants in New York City. She is exploring a second project on food rationing and the consequences on urban food provisioning and consumption. She is also developing a historical database of immigrant restaurants, which she will make publicly available through an interactive digital platform. Her research has been featured in NPR, Atlantic magazine, and Gastropod, a podcast on food science and history. She has advised and curated exhibitions, including shows at the New York Historical Society, the National Museum of American History, and the Museum of Chinese in America.