Soo-Ying Lee (a.k.a. Soo-Y. Lee and S. Y. Lee) is currently an Emeritus Professor with the School of Physical & Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His academic career has spanned 23 years (1981-2004) with the National University of Singapore (NUS), and 16 years (2004-2020) with Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He is known for his work as a teacher-scholar in Physical & Mathematical Sciences and as an academic administrator at both NUS and NTU.

Soo-Ying enrolled for undergraduate studies (1969-1972) in Science at the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, graduating with a BSc (First Class Honours) in Chemistry. He then proceeded for his PhD study (1972-1976) in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Chicago. His doctoral thesis advisor in (theoretical) Chemical Physics was Professor John C. Light (who passed away in 2016). This was followed by post-doctoral work (1977-1980) on the time-dependent approach to spectroscopy, notably Raman spectroscopy and photodissociation, with Professor Eric J. Heller, then at the University of California, Los Angeles (and now at Harvard University).

After his post-doctoral study, Soo-Ying joined the Department of Chemistry, National University of Singapore (NUS), as a Lecturer in 1981. He was promoted through the ranks of Senior Lecturer (1984) with tenure, Associate Professor (1991), and Professor (1996). [At that time, academic ranks at NUS were a hybrid of the British and American systems.] While being a teacher-scholar, he was also engaged in academic administration: Head of Chemistry (1996-1997); Dean of Science (1997-2000); NUS Director of Research (2000-2001); NUS Vice Provost for Budget and Planning (2001-2003). In 2003-2004, he spent a (second) sabbatical with Professor Richard A. Mathies, at the University of California, Berkeley, to work on the theory of femtosecond stimulated Raman Spectroscopy and related ultrafast spectroscopies.

After his sabbatical at Berkeley, he was recruited by Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, in October 2004, to set up a new School of Physical & Mathematical Sciences from scratch, as the Founding Dean, for teaching and research in three Divisions: Mathematical Sciences, Physics & Applied Physics, and Chemistry & Biological Chemistry. Later, he was appointed the Founding Dean (2006-2009) of the College of Science. In 2018-2020 he served as Director of the Institute of Advanced Studies, NTU. He retired as Emeritus Professor in October 2020.

His awards and honours include: National Science Award, Singapore, 2003, jointly with Prof. Donghui Zhang; Fellow of the Singapore National Institute of Chemistry, 1988; Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, UK, 1999; Fellow of the Academy of Science, Malaysia, 2008; Fellow of the Singapore National Academy of Science, 2012.