Helen Lee was born in 1978 in Summit, NJ.  In 2000, Lee earned a B.S. in art and design at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge (MIT), and in 2006, a M.F.A. in glass from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence (RISD).

Lee is an artist, designer, educator, and glassblower currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design, California College of Art, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and the MIT Glass Lab. She was recently an Affiliate Artist at Headlands Center for the Arts from 2009-2011 and currently works as a freelance graphic designer for Celery Design Collaborative and Chronicle Books.

Lee’s innovative work combines her interests in glass and typography.  Her Vitreous Typography sculptures explore three-dimensional letter forms in blown glass, and her design of a typeface derived from blown glass forms is currently in development.  Her work has been featured in gallery exhibitions nationwide.

In 2006, Lee received a RISD Graduate Award of Excellence in the Fine Arts, and an E.P. Anderson Scholarship Award from the Providence Art Club; a Pilchuck Glass School–MIT Partner Scholarship in 2001; a Peter J. Eloranta Fellowship at MIT in 2000; and a List Foundation Fellowship for Students of Color and an MIT Council for the Arts Grant in 1999.