Deanna Lee is the Vice President of Communications and Marketing at The New York Public Library, appointed in April 2009. She is responsible for promoting the Library and its mission, activities, collections and milestones through publicity, marketing, system-wide publications, advertising, graphics, new- and multi-media.

Ms. Lee came to The New York Public Library from the Asia Society, where she oversaw media relations and marketing across all program areas—policy, business, education, arts, and culture—extending the worldwide reach and profile of Asia Society. Under her leadership media recognition of the Society doubled, with a 688 percent increase in broadcast coverage, in two years. She also developed new media content partnerships with The Far Eastern Economic Review, WashingtonPost.com, Project Syndicate, the Huffington Post and YouTube.

Ms. Lee joined Asia Society after a career in broadcast news. As overseas producer for Nightline, she worked in the former Yugoslavia, Israel and the Middle East, Europe, Eastern Europe, Russia, and Australia. In Africa, she covered famine and the U.S. deployment in Somalia, the election of Nelson Mandela, and AIDS in Uganda. In Asia she reported on global environmental, health, and demographic concerns; and covered the death of Deng Xiaoping, the Hong Kong handover, and the resurgence of Shanghai as a world financial center. Most recently, she was a Senior Producer at ABC's World News with Charles Gibson, formerly with Peter Jennings. Ms. Lee has received eight Emmy Awards and one duPont-Columbia Award.

A native of Seattle, Washington, Ms. Lee is first-generation Chinese-American. She serves on the National Advisory Council of the Asian American Justice Center, the Board of Directors of the Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics, Inc. and the board of the New York Piano Society. An accomplished classical pianist, she still performs and competes internationally. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University in Music, and English and American Literature.

Blog Entries by Deanna Lee

Yes We Can: The Power of International Education

3 Comments | Posted November 17, 2008 | 05:24 PM (EST)


When Barack Obama reached out in his Grant Park acceptance speech "to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores" -- proclaiming "our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared" -- he also reached a special group of American youth who couldn't be more excited about the world's and...

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The Sleeping Giant in American Politics

7 Comments | Posted September 30, 2008 | 02:34 PM (EST)


Look at Asian Americans today, says Paul Ong, "and what you're seeing is the awakening of the new sleeping giant in politics. The question is, how fast are we going to become a meaningful force?"

Ong is the principal investigator of "The State of Asian America: Trajectory of Civic and...

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Beijing Diary

Posted August 28, 2008 | 08:42 PM (EST)


Heading out of Beijing after the Olympics, I'm struck by the "new China" I've seen. Beijing was of course spectacularly clean, colorful and welcoming for the Games. But what has really made an impression on me -- from visits to schools, workplaces and homes -- is a China that does...

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A Chinese American at the Olympics (or, an American Chinese?)

Posted August 18, 2008 | 11:40 PM (EST)


Wow...what a feeling to arrive in Beijing in the middle of the Olympic Games.

I was curious to see how much I would really feel "part" of all the fervor. This is my first trip to China in over ten years. Even before, try as I might I never...

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