Erika Lee, Associate Professor in U.S. History, received her Ph.D. in History from the University of California at Berkeley. From 2003 to 2005, Professor Lee was a McKnight Land Grant Professor. She is currently a McKnight Presidential Fellow and serves as the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of History. Her primary research and teaching interests are in Asian American, immigration, comparative race and ethnicity, and 20th century American historyl.

Her book, At America's Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943 (University of North Carolina Press, 2003) explains how the Chinese exclusion laws transformed the United States into a gatekeeping nation and analyzes the consequences of exclusion for both the Chinese in America and the United States in general. At the heart of the book is the question of whether the United States is a nation of immigrants or a gatekeeping nation. At America's Gates won the 2003 Theodore Saloutos Book Prize in Immigration and Ethnic History and the 2003 History Book Prize from the Association of Asian American Studies. It was also selected as a 2004 Choice Outstanding Academic Title.

She is the author of several articles, including, most recently, - "American Gatekeeping: Race and Immigration Law in the Twentieth Century," in Not Just Black and White: Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity, Then to Now, George Fredrickson, Nancy Foner, and Josh DeWind, eds., (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2004) and "Enforcing the Borders: Chinese Exclusion along the U.S. Borders with Canada and Mexico, 1882 to 1924," Journal of American History (June, 2002).

Her current research project is entitled: Asian Immigration and Exclusion in the Americas: Race, Migration, and Transnational Immigration Restriction, 1880-1940.

Professor Lee is a founding member of the Asian American Studies Initiative at the University of Minnesota. In 2004 and 2005, she was a finalist for the University of Minnesota Morse-Alumni Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching.