Jennifer 8. Lee (

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

name: ;

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...

: '; POJ: ') (born March 15, 1976) is an American

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

who previously worked for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. She is also the co-founder and president of the literary studio

Plympton Plympton is a suburb of the city of Plymouth in Devon, England. It is in origin an ancient stannary town. It was an important trading centre for locally mined tin, and a seaport before the River Plym silted up and trade moved down river to Plym ...

, as well as a producer on ''

The Search for General Tso ''The Search for General Tso'' is a documentary film that premiered at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival. It was directed by Ian Cheney and produced by Amanda Murray and Jennifer 8. Lee. Sundance Selects acquired it in December 2014, and was released ...

'', which premiered at the 2014

Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by TriBeCa Productions, Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive progra ...

. Lee is a vice-chair of the

Unicode Emoji Subcommittee The Unicode Consortium (legally Unicode, Inc.) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization incorporated and based in Mountain View, California, Mountain View, California. Its primary purpose is to maintain and publish the Unicode Standard which was d ...

, which is responsible for making recommendations relating to

emoji An emoji ( ; plural emoji or emojis) is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from typed conversat ...

to the

Unicode Technical Committee The Unicode Consortium (legally Unicode, Inc.) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization incorporated and based in Mountain View, California. Its primary purpose is to maintain and publish the Unicode Standard which was developed with the intentio ...

. Inspired by the universality of the dumpling across cultures and cuisines (e.g.,

jiaozi ''Jiaozi'' (; ; pinyin: jiǎozi) are Chinese dumplings commonly eaten in China and other parts of East Asia. ''Jiaozi'' are folded to resemble Chinese sycee and have great cultural significance attached to them within China. ''Jiaozi'' ar ...

in China,

ravioli Ravioli (; singular: ''raviolo'', ) are a type of pasta comprising a filling enveloped in thin pasta dough. Usually served in broth or with a sauce, they originated as a traditional food in Italian cuisine. Ravioli are commonly square, though o ...

in Italy,

pierogi Pierogi are filled dumplings made by wrapping unleavened dough around a savory or sweet filling and cooking in boiling water. They are often pan-fried before serving. Pierogi or their varieties are associated with the cuisines of Central, Easter ...

in Poland,

empanadas An empanada is a type of baked or fried turnover consisting of pastry and filling, common in Spanish, other Southern European, Latin American, and Iberian-influenced cultures around the world. The name comes from the Spanish (to bread, i.e., ...

in various Latin American countries), she helped to make the dumpling emoji a candidate. She also co-authored the proposal for a

hijab In modern usage, hijab ( ar, حجاب, translit=ḥijāb, ) generally refers to headcoverings worn by Muslim women. Many Muslims believe it is obligatory for every female Muslim who has reached the age of puberty to wear a head covering. While ...

emoji.

Early life and education

Lee was born on March 15, 1976, in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, to immigrants from

Kinmen Kinmen, alternatively known as Quemoy, is a group of islands governed as a county by the Republic of China (Taiwan), off the southeastern coast of mainland China. It lies roughly east of the city of Xiamen in Fujian, from which it is separate ...

, a group of islands off the coast of

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

Fujian province Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its cap ...

governed by

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

. Lee was not given a

middle name In various cultures, a middle name is a portion of a personal name that is written between the person's first given name and their surname. A middle name is often abbreviated and is then called middle initial or just initial. A person may be ...

at birth so she chose "8." when she was a teenager. In

culture, the number eight symbolizes prosperity and good luck. She graduated from

Hunter College High School Hunter College High School is a secondary school located in the Carnegie Hill neighborhood on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It is administered by Hunter College of the City University of New York (CUNY). Hunter is publicly funded, and there i ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

in 1994. Lee graduated from

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

in 1999 with a degree in

applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a combination of mathematical s ...

and

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...

Career

While a student at Harvard, Lee was the vice president of ''

The Harvard Crimson ''The Harvard Crimson'' is the student newspaper of Harvard University and was founded in 1873. Run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates, it served for many years as the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Beginning in the f ...

'' student newspaper. She interned at ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'', ''

Newsday ''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and f ...

'', and ''The New York Times'' during college. She joined the ''Times'' in 2001. Published in 2008, Lee wrote a book about the history of Chinese food in the United States and around the world, titled '' The Fortune Cookie Chronicles'', documenting the process on her blog.

Warner Books Grand Central Publishing is a book publishing imprint of Hachette Book Group, originally established in 1970 as Warner Books when Warner Communications acquired the Paperback Library. When Time Warner sold their book publishing business to Hachett ...

editor Jonathan Karp struck a deal with Lee to write a book about "how Chinese food is more all-American than apple pie.""Jennifer 8. Lee Attracts Americans with Chinese Food"
October 13, 2008. Source: Xinhua/Translated by womenofchina.cn She appeared on ''

The Colbert Report ''The Colbert Report'' ( ) is an American late-night talk and news satire television program hosted by Stephen Colbert that aired four days a week on Comedy Central from October 17, 2005, to December 18, 2014, for 1,447 episodes. The show focuse ...

'' to promote the book. The book was #26 on

the New York Times Best Seller list ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. John Bear, ''The #1 New York Times Best Seller: intriguing facts about the 484 books that have been #1 New York Times ...

. In December 2009, Lee accepted a

buyout In finance, a buyout is an investment transaction by which the ownership equity of a company, or a majority share of the stock of the company is acquired. The acquiror thereby "buys out" the present equity holders of the target company. A buyout ...

from ''The New York Times''. 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 ''I Love You, Man'' is a 2009 American bromantic comedy film written and directed by John Hamburg, based on a script by Larry Levin. The film stars Paul Rudd as a friendless man looking for a best man for his upcoming wedding. However, his new b ...

'' starring

Paul Rudd Paul Stephen Rudd (born April 6, 1969) is an American actor. He studied theater at the University of Kansas and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, before making his acting debut in 1991. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in ...

. Lee has served on the advisory panel for the

John S. and James L. Knight Foundation The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, also known as the Knight Foundation, is an American non-profit foundation that provides grants for journalism, communities, and the arts. The organization was founded as the Knight Memorial Education ...

's "News Challenge", and has assisted the whistleblowing site

WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is an international Nonprofit organization, non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous Source (journalism), sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activism, Internet acti ...

dealing with publicity.WikiLeaks questions why it was rejected for Knight grant
Yahoo! News, June 17, 2010 She helped the organization with its April 2010 release of a video showing the

July 12, 2007, Baghdad airstrike On July 12, 2007, a series of air-to-ground attacks were conducted by a team of two U.S. AH-64 Apache helicopters in Al-Amin al-Thaniyah, New Baghdad, during the Iraqi insurgency which followed the invasion of Iraq. On April 5, 2010, the attacks ...

. Lee serves on the board of directors of the

Center for Public Integrity The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) is an American nonprofit investigative journalism organization whose stated mission is "to reveal abuses of power, corruption and dereliction of duty by powerful public and private institutions in order to c ...

, the advisory board of the

Nieman Foundation The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University is the primary journalism institution at Harvard. It was founded in February 1938 as the result of a $1.4 million bequest by Agnes Wahl Nieman, the widow of Lucius W. Nieman, founder of ' ...

, and the

Asian American Writers' Workshop The Asian American Writers' Workshop (often abbreviated AAWW) is a nonprofit literary arts organization founded in 1991 to support Asian American writers, literature and community. Cofounders Curtis Chin, Christina Chiu, Marie Myung-Ok Lee, and B ...

. She is also an advisor to

Upworthy Upworthy is a website dedicated to positive storytelling. It was started in March 2012 by Eli Pariser, the former executive director of MoveOn, and Peter Koechley, the former managing editor of ''The Onion''. One of Facebook's co-founders, Chris ...

. In 2011, Lee and fellow writer

Yael Goldstein Love Yael Goldstein Love (born 1978) is a novelist, editor and book critic. She is also co-founder and editorial director of the literary studio Plympton. Biography Goldstein Love's first novel was ''The Passion of Tasha Darsky'', originally titled ...

founded a literary studio named Plympton, Inc. The studio focuses on publishing

serialized fiction In literature, a serial is a printing or publishing format by which a single larger work, often a work of narrative fiction, is published in smaller, sequential instalments. The instalments are also known as ''numbers'', ''parts'' or ''fascicle ...

for digital platforms. Investors include

Reddit Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...

co-founder

Alexis Ohanian Alexis Kerry Ohanian ( hy, Ալեքսիս Քերի Օհանյան; born April 24, 1983) is an American internet entrepreneur and investor. He is best known as the co-founder and executive chairman of the social media site Reddit along with Stev ...

Y Combinator Y Combinator (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator launched in March 2005. It has been used to launch more than 3,000 companies, including Airbnb, Coinbase, Cruise, DoorDash, Dropbox, Instacart, Quora, PagerDuty, Reddit, Str ...

partner Garry Tan, Delicious founder

Joshua Schachter Joshua Schachter (; born January 1, 1974) is an American entrepreneur and the creator of Delicious, creator of GeoURL, and co-creator of Memepool. He holds a B.S. in electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg ...

, Hipmunk founder

Adam Goldstein Adam Michael Goldstein (March 30, 1973 – August 28, 2009), known professionally as DJ AM, was an American disc jockey (DJ). Born in Philadelphia, Goldstein became interested in deejaying as a child after watching Herbie Hancock perform his 1 ...

, Inkling founder Matt MacInnis,

Columbia Law Columbia Law School (Columbia Law or CLS) is the law school of Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York C ...

Professor

Tim Wu Timothy "Tim" Shiou-Ming Wu (born 1972) is a Taiwanese American legal scholar and official in the Biden Administration tasked with Technology and Competition policy. He was also a professor of law at Columbia University and a contributing opinio ...

(author of “The Master Switch”),

Quora Quora () is a social question-and-answer website based in Mountain View, California. It was founded on June 25, 2009, and made available to the public on June 21, 2010. Users can collaborate by editing questions and commenting on answers that ...

co-founder

Charlie Cheever Charlie Cheever (born August 2, 1981) is the co-founder, along with Adam D'Angelo, of Quora, an online knowledge market. He was formerly an engineer and manager at Facebook. Prior to Facebook, Cheever was employed by Amazon.com in Seattle. He lef ...

, and

Tony Hsieh Anthony Hsieh ( ; December 12, 1973November 27, 2020) was an American internet entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He retired as the CEO of the online shoe and clothing company Zappos in August 2020 after 21 years. Prior to joining Zappos, Hs ...

’s Vegas Tech Fund. Its first series launched in September 2012 as part of the Kindle Serials program. Its app

Rooster The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adult m ...

, launched in March 2014, is a mobile reading service for iOS7. In 2012, Lee created NewsDiffs, a website that archives article revisions from ''

'',

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

, ''

Politico ''Politico'' (stylized in all caps), known originally as ''The Politico'', is an American, German-owned political journalism newspaper company based in Arlington County, Virginia, that covers politics and policy in the United States and intern ...

'', ''

'', and the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

, with two brothers who were programmers,

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the mo ...

graduate student Eric Price and Tddium employee Greg Price. 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 The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fixed academic disciplines, but draws from ...

. She is a producer for the documentary ''Artificial Gamer''.

References

External links

* *
New York Times archive of Lee's articlesPlympton official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Jennifer 8. 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 writers 21st-century American journalists American women journalists American journalists of Chinese descent 21st-century American women writers Journalists from New York City

Early life and education

Career

See also

References

External links