Media Lab alumnus Jay Lee, the executive director of National Geographic Asia, passed away in Seoul, South Korea, in early June 2023. 

Jay received a master’s degree from the MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies (now MIT ACT) in 2000 and a second master’s degree from the Tangible Media group in 2001. His connections with MIT also included executive education at the MIT Sloan School of Management. 

After earning his master’s degree at the Media Lab, Jay served as a research scientist in the Things That Think Consortium. Over the course of his career, he also managed the Future Convergence Group at Samsung Digital Media’s R&D Center and worked in business development at Samsung Electronics. He later founded an early mobile Web 2.0 service provider, and served as the executive director of Asia for One Laptop Per Child. He was also a senior member of the research and development committee of the National Council of Science and Technology (NST) in Korea. 

Jay is survived by his wife and son. The Media Lab community will miss his creative spirit.