Research Associate
Rachel (Da Eun) Lee is an operator and strategist working at the intersection of frontier science and public goods. She co-founded Hydefy, which makes high-performance biomaterials to replace animal leather and petroleum-based synthetics, leading it from concept to a Paris Fashion Week launch and signing partnerships across fashion, automotive, and footwear. Hydefy spun out of Nature's Fynd, the fermentation biotech born from NASA research in Yellowstone, where Rachel spent five years on the executive team as the company scaled past $500 million raised.
As a Strategy Officer at the Gates Foundation, Rachel led the first coordinated health systems effort across fifteen program teams and helped shape a $1.7 billion education strategy that reached a million students. She began her career at the Boston Consulting Group in agriculture, healthcare, and retail.
Rachel holds an MPP from Harvard Kennedy School and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She graduated summa cum laude from University of Pennsylvania where she studied neuroscience and economics.
Her research examines how cities can build innovation economies in the AI era: the incentives, university partnerships, and regulation that can create public value from frontier technologies. Faculty sponsor: John Haigh, Co-Director of M-RCBG.