Yong Suk Lee

Biography & Research

Yong Suk Lee is associate professor of technology, economy and global affairs in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame and a core-affiliated faculty member at the McKenna Center for Human Development and Global Business. He also is director of the Future of Labor Lab and program chair in technology ethics for the Notre Dame's Institute for Ethics and the Common Good.

He is also a faculty fellow of the Keough School’s Kellogg Institute, Pulte Institute for Global Development, Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies and the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement With Religion. 

Lee’s research intersects technology, economics, and governance. His recent research examines and forecasts the evolution of labor, work, entrepreneurship and organizations, especially in relation to technological change; AI behavior and human-AI interaction; the societal and ethical implications of technological change; and the governance of AI.

Prior to coming to Notre Dame, Lee was a faculty member at Stanford University as the SK Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Prior to Stanford, he was assistant professor of economics at Williams College. He earned his Ph.D. in economics from Brown University, a master’s degree in public policy from Duke University and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architecture from Seoul National University. Lee also worked as a real estate development consultant and architecture designer as he transitioned from architecture to economics.

Recent Work

• Managers as Gatekeepers in the Age of AI (SSRN Working Paper)
• Predicting AI’s Impact on Labor Is a Core Machine Learning Problem (Proceedings of the International Conference on Machine Learning, 2026)
• There Are Futures That Benchmark-Driven AI Cannot See (Proceedings of the International Conference on Machine Learning, 2026)
• "Robots and Labor in Nursing Homes" (Labour Economics)
• "Near to Mid-term Risks and Opportunities of Open-Source Generative AI"(Proceedings of the International Conference on Machine Learning, 2024)
• "The Evolving Impact of Robots on Jobs" (Industrial and Labor Relations Review)
• "When Does AI Pay Off? AI-Adoption Intensity, Complementary Investments, and R&D Strategy" (Technovation)
• "US-China tech decoupling increases willingness to share personal data in China" (Humanities & Social Sciences Publications)
• In Institutions We Trust? Trust in Government and the Allocation of Entrepreneurial Intention (Organization Science)
• Do University Entrepreneurship Programs Promote Entrepreneurship? (Strategic Management Journal)
• "Measuring Urban Quality and Change Through the Detection of Physical Attributes of Decay" (Scientific Reports)

Honors & Awards

• Keough School Excellence in Master of Global Affairs Teaching Award (2026)

Courses

• Application, Ethics and Governance of AI (undergraduate and master of global affairs course)
• Quantitative Methods (master of global affairs course)
• Future of Labor (undergraduate and masters of global affairs course)

News & Media

• "Federally funded research explores how AI tools can improve manufacturing worker safety, product quality"
• "AI and labor policy: Notre Dame workshop in Washington, D.C. explores interventions to empower workers"
• "Trump wants to create manufacturing jobs. His tech allies invest in robots to do the work" (ABC News)
• "AI and labor policy: Notre Dame workshop in Washington, D.C. explores interventions to empower workers"
• "Using robots in nursing homes linked to higher employee retention, better patient care"
• "Notre Dame AI expert informs discussion on helping workers adapt"
• "AI drive-thrus may be good for business. But not for the rest of us" (CNN)
• "AI can alert urban planners and policymakers to cities’ decay" (Notre Dame News)
• "AI can stunt or complement the labor market" (Notre Dame News)
• "Will a robot take my job? Notre Dame researcher says this view is overly pessimistic" (Notre Dame News)