Lee was born on 6 October 1960 in Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia to two rubber tappers; however, she grew up in Malacca. She is the eldest of seven siblings.[2][3]
Lee received her primary education at Kiow Min Chinese Primary School and subsequently studied at Sekolah Dato' Dol Said, Notre Dame Convent, and Gajah Berang.
Described by her university as a "passionate" alumna, Lee started the Class of 1985 Pioneer Fund, a fundraising scheme which generated a few million dollars for academic incentives. In 1997, she became the NTU School of Civil & Environmental Engineering Alumni Association (NTU CEEAA)'s President until 2008. She was the recipient of the 2000 Nanyang Technological University Alumni Service Award by NTU. In 2006, Lee received the Nanyang Alumni Achievement Award from NTU. The same year, the Cambodian Government presented to her the Royal Government Gold Medal.
In 2011, the University of Liverpool presented to her an Honorary Doctorate. She was awarded the Nanyang Distinguished Alumni Award from NTU in 2012.[5]
Career
Lee was the president of the Singapore Table Tennis Association (STTA)[5] from 2008 till 2014.[6]
Engineering career
An engineer by training, in 1996, Lee established LBW Consultants LLP.[7] Her firm was acquired by global engineering consultancy Meinhardt Group, where she went on to be a group director, in 2014.[8] Prior to joining politics, Lee was also a senior engineer at ST Construction and an assistant project manager at Wing Tai.[2] She served as president of the Institution of Engineers Singapore from 2008 to 2010.[9] She served as Non Executive Chairman of listed company TEE Land Pte Ltd and independent director of Koh Brothers Group.[10]
In 2020, Lee retired from her engineering practice.[11] She became chairperson to the advisory committee of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Nanyang Technological University (NTU).[11]
Political career
Lee served as MP for Ang Mo Kio GRC from 2006 till 2011, and Nee Soon GRC from 2011 to 2020.[2] She was the chairperson of the Government Parliamentary Committee for National Development as well as for the Environment and Water Resources.[12]
In 2015, Lee was the subject of controversy when it was uncovered that LBW Consultants LLP had successfully tendered to provide civil and structural engineering services to the Housing and Development Board for projects within Nee Soon South ward, which was under her care at that time.[13]
In 2019, Lee was criticised twice from the public over her parliament speeches. Lee spoke against community cat feeders whose "irresponsible cat feeding" led to pest issues in her Nee Soon South ward.[14]Cat welfare society and animal lovers criticised her as there was a prior arrangement on responsible cat feeding and it was unfair that Lee targeted the community cat feeders for the pest issues.[14] Lee was again criticised online[15] for telling a story in Chinese[16] about an "Ah Gong" (i.e. the Singaporean government) during a budget debate in Parliament. In her story, she referred to Singaporeans as "Si Gui Kia" (ungrateful brats) for apparent non-appreciation of what the government did for them.[17] The video of her parliamentary speech quickly went viral.[16]
