Jennifer 8. Lee
Template:Short description Template:Distinguish Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox person Jennifer 8. Lee (Chinese name: Template:Lang;<ref name="Simplified Chinese">Template:Cite web</ref> pinyin: Template:Lang; POJ: Template:Lang; born March 15, 1976) is an American journalist who previously worked for The New York Times.<ref name=buyout/> She is the co-founder and president of the literary studio Plympton<ref name=Plympton /> and a producer of The Search for General Tso, which premiered at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Lee is a vice-chair of the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> which is responsible for making recommendations relating to emoji to the Unicode Technical Committee. Inspired by the universality of the dumpling across cultures and cuisines (e.g., jiaozi in China, ravioli in Italy, pierogi in Poland, empanadas in various Latin American countries), she helped to make the dumpling emoji a candidate.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She also co-authored the proposals for a hijab emoji, an onion emoji, and a phoenix emoji.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Early life and education
Lee was born on March 15, 1976, in New York City, to immigrants from Kinmen, a group of islands off the coast of China's Fujian province governed by Taiwan.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="book">Template:Cite book</ref> Lee was not given a middle name at birth so she chose "8." when she was a teenager.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Simplified Chinese"/> In Chinese culture, the number eight symbolizes prosperity and good luck.
Lee graduated from Hunter College High School in Manhattan in 1994. She then graduated from Harvard University in 1999 with a degree in applied mathematics and economics.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Career
While a student at Harvard, Lee was the vice president of The Harvard Crimson student newspaper.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She interned at The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Newsday, and The New York Times during college. She worked for the New York Times for nine years, accepting a buyout in 2009.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name="buyout">Template:Cite web</ref>
Lee wrote a book about the history of Chinese food in the United States and around the world, titled The Fortune Cookie Chronicles,<ref name="book"/> documenting the process on her blog. Warner Books editor Jonathan Karp struck a deal with Lee to write a book about "how Chinese food is more all-American than apple pie."<ref name="womenofchina">Template:Cite web</ref> She appeared on The Colbert Report to promote the book.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Published in 2008, the book was #26 on the New York Times Best Seller list.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Lee attempted to popularize the term "man date" in a 2005 New York Times article, which subsequently inspired the 2009 film I Love You, Man.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Lee has served on the advisory panel for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation's "News Challenge", and has assisted the whistle-blowing site WikiLeaks dealing with publicity.<ref name="yahoo">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=":0" /> She helped the organization with its April 2010 release of a video showing the July 12, 2007, Baghdad airstrike.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref> Lee serves on the board of directors of the Center for Public Integrity,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> the advisory board of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism,<ref name=Nieman>Template:Cite web</ref> and the Asian American Writers' Workshop.<ref name=AAWW>Template:Cite web</ref> She is also an advisor to Upworthy.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In 2011, Lee and fellow writer Yael Goldstein Love founded a literary studio named Plympton, Inc.<ref name=Plympton>Template:Cite web</ref> The studio focuses on publishing serialized fiction for digital platforms.<ref name=Denison>Template:Cite news</ref> Investors include Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, Y Combinator partner Garry Tan, Delicious founder Joshua Schachter, Hipmunk founder Adam Goldstein, Inkling founder Matt MacInnis, Columbia Law Professor Tim Wu, Quora co-founder Charlie Cheever, and Tony Hsieh's Vegas Tech Fund.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Its first series launched in September 2012 as part of the Kindle Serials program.<ref name=Bosman>Template:Cite news</ref> Its app Rooster, launched in March 2014, is a mobile reading service for iOS7.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 2012, Lee created NewsDiffs, a website that archives article revisions from The New York Times, CNN, Politico, The Washington Post, and the BBC, with two brothers who were programmers, MIT graduate student Eric Price and Tddium employee Greg Price.<ref name="Brisbane2012-06-30">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Silverman2012-06-18">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Goldenberg2013-02-04">Template:Cite news</ref> They built the website in 38 hours (including sleep) during the June 16–17, 2012, Knight-Mozilla-M.I.T. hackathon at the MIT Media Lab.<ref name="Brisbane2012-06-30"/>
Lee is a producer of the documentary Artificial Gamer and is also involved in running a film enthusiast organization, Goodside.<ref>Template:Cite tweet</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 2024, Lee and other Wikipedia contributors founded WikiPortraits, a group of photographers working to improve Wikipedia's access to freely-licensed photos of notable people.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
See also
References
External links
- 1976 births
- American women writers of Chinese descent
- American writers of Taiwanese descent
- Harvard College alumni
- Hunter College High School alumni
- Living people
- People involved with Unicode
- The New York Times journalists
- 21st-century American women journalists
- 21st-century American journalists
- American journalists of Chinese descent
- 21st-century American women writers
- Journalists from New York City
- The Harvard Crimson people
- People associated with WikiLeaks
- Wikipedia people