Kwan Ok Lee is Professor of Real Estate and Deputy Head at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School. Recognized for teaching excellence, she has received the Annual Teaching Excellence Award (2016/2017), the Business School Teaching Excellence Awards (2020/2021, 2022/2023), and the School Teaching Excellence Awards (2015/2016, 2016/2017, 2018/2019).

Her research connects real estate, urban economics, and public policy, focusing on household residential choice, neighborhood dynamics and effects, and housing affordability. Her recent work appears in the Journal of Urban Economics, Nature Cities/Nature Mental Health, and Real Estate Economics. Kwan Ok holds editorial leadership roles as Editor of Housing Studies and Associate Editor of the International Journal of Urban Sciences. Previously, she served as Co-Editor of Territory, Politics, Governance and Associate Editor of the Journal of Housing and the Built Environment. She also sits on the editorial boards of nine peer-reviewed journals, including Housing Policy Debate. Her scholarship is recognized internationally: she is a Hoyt Academic Fellow of The Hoyt Institute, a Fellow of the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research (ABFER), and a Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute of Urban Research. She has served on the board of the Asian Real Estate Society (AsRES), represented AsRES on the International Real Estate Society Board, and currently chairs IRES Global Women in Real Estate.

Kwan Ok’s policy engagement includes collaborations with the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Policy Development and Research, the Urban Land Institute, South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, and Singapore’s Ministry of National Development. She has facilitated knowledge transfer through externally funded projects totaling about S$1.9 million.

She received her PhD in Policy, Planning, and Development from the University of Southern California and a Master in Urban Planning from Harvard University.