Dr Jennie Yee-ching Lee is a prominent Hong Kong philanthropist and visionary educator. Born and educated in Hong Kong, Dr Lee graduated from HKU with an honours degree in English Language & Literature. After further studies in the United States, she taught English at a renowned private school in the US. Since her return to Hong Kong, she served as Director of the Hong Kong YWCA from 1975 to 2003. Dr Lee also served on the Scholarship Committee of the American Women's Association. As the only local member of the Building Committee, she helped set up the first Ronald McDonald House to provide temporary lodging for young cancer patients and their families in Hong Kong.

‘Pay it forward’ is not only the name of a Hollywood movie, but also an idea of serial reciprocity, in which debts can be repaid in the currency of good deeds. This is the philosophy at the heart of the ‘Lee Shiu Socio-Economic Study Project’, established at HKU in 1998 by Dr Lee and her late husband, Dr Lee Shiu. Every year, their programmes bring together outstanding university students from Hong Kong, China, Singapore and the US, with the aim of cultivating international leaders with a broad understanding of China and world cultures. Many of these students have since assumed leadership positions and consider these programmes to have been a life-changing experience for them. The success of all these programmes would not have been possible without Dr Lee's extraordinary passion and extensive involvement.

Dr Lee and the late Dr Lee Shiu have also generously supported a great many educational projects, and at HKU, we are grateful for their commitment to and participation in a variety of HKU exchange programmes in Medicine, Law, Social Science, HKU SPACE and the HKU Foundation.

In addition to tirelessly promoting intercultural learning among university students across Asia-Pacific and the US with her late husband, Dr Lee also devotes much effort to the ongoing endeavour of improving the English communications ability of school and university students in Hong Kong and China. At HKU SPACE, the Jennie Lee English Village is named in her honour.  She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Lingnan University in 2007.