Jean LEE is an adjunct fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu and co-host of the Peabody-nominated Lazarus Heist podcast for the BBC World Service. As a journalist, Ms. LEE led the Associated Press news agency’s coverage of the Korean Peninsula as bureau chief (2008-2013). In 2011, she became the first American reporter to join the Pyongyang foreign press corps, and in January 2012, she opened AP’s Pyongyang bureau. From 2008 to 2017, Ms. LEE made dozens of extended reporting trips to North Korea, visiting farms, factories, schools, military academies, and homes during her exclusive coverage nationwide. In 2015, she joined the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, as a public policy fellow and later served as director of the Korea program. She joined the East-West Center in 2023. Ms. LEE has served as a CNN contributor and regularly provides commentary to various media outlets. She also appears in the National Geographic series “Inside North Korea” as well as PBS’s “Dictator’s Playbook” and Netflix’s “How to Become a Tyrant” and the documentary “Beyond Utopia.” She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Columbia University in New York.