She is the recipient of the inaugural American Mosaic Journalism Prize, the 2018 Los Angeles Literary Award and was a Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellow at the University of Michigan.

[4][5] She has been published by major American publications including California Sunday Magazine, VICE News, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Wired, Christian Science Monitor, Global Post, MSNBC, and Democracy Now!

"[8] Her work has been published by The Guardian, The Atlantic, Vice News, and The New York Times Magazine among other prominent publications,[7] and often deals with issues of race and justice.

One of her most notable pieces was the result of following the mother of a victim of police shooting for 17 months (December 2015 to August 2017),[9][10] and won the 2018 PEN America Los Angeles Literary Award for Journalism.

[13] Lee also worked as a reporter at magazine Mother Jones, "where she wrote about criminal justice, and income and racial inequality, among other subjects.