Steve Lee is a group leader at the John Curtin School of Medical Research, College of Health and Medicine, Australian National University. He received his PhD in optics and biophysics from the University of St Andrews in 2010. In 2010-2012, he crossed discipline from physics to biomedicine at Harvard Medical School. Since 2013, he has been at the Australian National University, leading the establishment of research and teaching of biomedical imaging and optical biophysics at the ANU. His honours included Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Award, Australian Eureka Prize (ANSTO Innovative Use of Technology), The Royal Society (UK) International Incoming Fellowship etc.

He heads the Optical BIofluidic Group (O-BIG) at JCSMR. His research seeks to unravel the complex dynamics of cell communities as they respond to extracellular cues (fluid forces, surface adhesion factors and 3D topology) using optical and fluidic technologies. His focus is to merge biophysical approaches to accelerate the production of biological tissue substitutes at scale. His other research interests in applied physics include the development of optical traps, measuring optical nonlinearity of nanofluids, new methods in volumetric biological imaging and biological engineering of living tissue.