Barbara Lee

Background

Lee, Barbara was born in July 1945. Daughter of Sidney and Ruth Fish.

Education

Bachelor, Simmons College, 1967. Master of Social Work, Boston University. Degree (honorary), Pine Manor College, 2004.

Career

She founded and leads the Barbara Lee Family Foundation and the Barbara Lee Political Office, both located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She writes monthly about women in politics in the Huffington Post. Barbara Fish Lee earned a master’s degree from the Boston University School of Social Work and her bachelor’s degree from Simmons College in Boston.

She is a former school teacher and social worker

Turning Point: The Changing Landscape for Women Candidates will be published in June, 2011. Through the foundation, Barbara has also endowed The Barbara Lee Women in United States. Politics Training Program and Lecture Series, a nonpartisan training program for women at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and The Barbara Lee Family Foundation Intern Fellowship Program, a political internship program at the Massachusetts State House for students of Simmons College, her alma mater.

Barbara also serves as Advisory Council Chair for Emerge Massachusetts, an intensive political training program for Democratic women and a program Barbara brought to the Commonwealth. Barbara has helped elect every sitting Democratic woman governor and United States. Senator by providing strategic advice, candidate training, direct support, and voter mobilization.

Barbara frequently hosts events to raise the profile of women elected officials and candidates, such as Women's Senate, a biennial fundraiser that provides support for progressive women Senators.

In 2008, she served as the Company-Chair of the Martha Coakley for Senate Campaign and in 2004, Barbara convened Revolutionary Women, which was held in conjunction with the Democratic National Convention in Boston. An advocate for Boston’s cultural life and advancing women's representation in contemporary art, Barbara is Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, serves on the Collection Committee at Harvard University’s Art Museums, the Visiting Committee at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and is a founding chair of the contemporary arts program at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. She has also funded public art such as the Boston Women's Memorial and the Arts on the Point sculpture garden at UMass/Boston.

Other initiatives for women founded by Barbara include the White House Project, which she founded in 1998 with Laura Liswood and Marie Wilson.

The Simmons Institute for Leadership and Change. The Family Policy Center at The Heller School at Brandeis University.

And the Women's Studies Program at Brandeis University. Boston Magazine has included Barbara among “The 50 Most Powerful Women in Boston” and their list of “100 Women Who Run This Town.” Women's eNews ranks her among the “21 Leaders for the 21st Century.”.

Achievements

• Barbara Lee has been listed as a noteworthy political activist, foundation administrator by Marquis Who's Who.

Membership

Founding chair contemporary arts program Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. Co-founder The White House Project, 1997.

Interests

• Collector of Modern and contemporary art by women.

Connections

Married Thomas Lee, 1968 (divorced 1996). Children: Zach, Robbie.

Father:

Sidney Fish

Mother:

Ruth Fish

Spouse:

Thomas Lee

child:

Zach Lee

child:

Robbie Lee