About
J. Yuri Lee is an international trade and development practitioner and advisor with 15 years of experience shaping policy, conducting research, and leading programs to advance inclusive economic growth and labor rights through trade and foreign policy. She has supported programs in Asia, the Indo-Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean. Ms. Lee was most recently a Foreign Service Officer at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where she contributed to program design, strategy development, monitoring and evaluation, and award administration for various initiatives, including inclusive development programs for LGBTQI+ human rights; cross-functional marine conservation in Southeast Asia; and the U.S. Feed the Future initiative to address global hunger and malnutrition. Previously, Ms. Lee served at the U.S. Department of Labor as an International Labor Advisor for Trade Policy, where she led five international trade and labor portfolios and advised the White House’s National Security Council and other U.S. federal agencies on embedding labor rights in supply chains and trade policy, contributing to the development of U.S. foreign policy on trade and investment matters. She also led forced labor investigations in global supply chains as an International Trade Analyst and then as a Branch Chief at the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection agency. Before joining the government, Yuri was a research associate with an agricultural economics and food policy think tank with Cornell University, where she supported the implementation of a $13.4M Gates Foundation grant to promote nutritious food systems in India. Yuri also served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in El Salvador (2014-2016), where she advanced women’s economic empowerment with a rural community of farmers.
Yuri holds a master’s degree from Cornell University in Global Development specializing in International Agriculture and Rural Development, and a B.A. in Urban Studies and Planning from the University of California, San Diego. She is proficient in Spanish and Korean.