Title: Professor and chairwoman, Department of English, Vanguard University

Education: Ph.D., English (British and American literature), University of California at Berkeley; M.F.A. and B.A., Brown University

Age: 38

Career mentors: Hertha Dawn Sweet Wong, U.C. Berkeley; Meredith Steinbach, Brown University; Sandra McPherson, U.C. Davis

Words of wisdom/advice for new faculty members: “Cultivate empathy and listen. Understand the cultures of your campus. Share your passion for teaching and research.”

When Dr. Karen An-Hwei Lee was a first-grader, she enjoyed writing and illustrating chapbooks under the instruction of a “wonderful teacher” who guided her creativity as she produced books about butterflies and seeds. “I’ve been writing ever since,” she says. “I started keeping journals; writing letters.”

But as a member of a family of scientists, the Massachusetts native attended a high school with a nationally competitive science program and entered Brown University as a pre-med biochemistry major. Nevertheless, her passion for writing prevailed. She enrolled in one creative writing workshop after another.

“I kept returning to my love for writing. …This work culminated in an honors thesis,” she recalls of her years at Brown, where she went on to earn her bachelor’s in literary arts and an M.F.A. in creative writing. Lee earned a Ph.D. in literature in 2001 from the University of California, Berkeley, where she was the recipient of a coveted Cota-Robles Fellowship in English.

As a full professor at Vanguard University, Lee heads the English Department and co-leads the university’s diversity committee.

Vanguard is a private, Christian, liberal arts and professional studies institution in Costa Mesa, Calif.

Lee was drawn to the campus of just under 2,000 students for those reasons. She speaks frankly about how faith plays an important role in her work as an educator and writer. Her faith, she contends, is “rooted in dynamic multicultural communities — Korean Presbyterians in the charismatic vein and African-American Pentecostals.”