Lisa Lee joined UNU-IAS as a UNU-JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow in October 2011, and is working with the Biodiplomacy Initiative team. She is conducting research in alternative land-use options to counter biofuel-driven biodiversity loss in developing countries. The objective of the research is to explore profitable avenues for utilizing biological resources that are both economically and ecologically sustainable, as an alternative to land clearing for cultivating biofuel feed crops. Her research will investigate these possibilities in the context of international agreements on the use and trade of biological resources, specifically the Nagoya Protocol and Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

Lee received her PhD in agricultural economics from the University of Sydney, specializing in water economics focusing on water market reform in the Murray-Darling Basin in Australia. After graduating, she worked as a research consultant at the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney. She was involved in projects evaluating the effectiveness of government programmes to improve urban water use efficiency. Prior to becoming a UNU-JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow, Lee was undertaking postdoctoral research at the School of Economics, Australian School of Business at the University of New South Wales. She conducted work in salinity mitigation policies, analyzing the feasibility of market-based instruments such as cap-and-trade in salinity credits, as well as research in improving agricultural productivity measures in the irrigation and fisheries sectors. Her other research interest is in wildlife conservation, with ongoing collaborative work with the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology in Taiwan, specialists at the International Union for Conservation of Nature and TRAFFIC Taipei.