About

Alice Lee is an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior in the ILR School at Cornell University. Her research examines social influence through two core dimensions: the specific ways influence attempts are crafted and communicated, and the crucial role of the identities, relationships, and hierarchies that define the parties involved and shape the meaning and effectiveness of these influence attempts. Her findings reveal that successful influence hinges not only on what we ask for, but also on the implicit signals we send and the social lenses through which those signals are interpreted. Her work has been published in journals such as Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Journal of Applied Psychology, Psychological Science, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. She holds a Ph.D. in Management from Columbia Business School and a B.S. in Finance from the Stern School of Business at New York University. Prior to her academic career, she worked in asset management at J.P. Morgan.

Research topics

• Ophthalmology
• Medicine
• Aeronautics
• Astronomy
• Virology
• Engineering
• Optometry
• Pathology
• Aerospace engineering
• Physics

Selected publications

• Sa1873: RISK FACTORS AND CLINICAL COURSE OF INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASE IN PATIENTS UNDERGOING CANCER THERAPY

  Gastroenterology · 2025-05-01

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Corneal Edema and the Endothelium in Spaceflight

  Aerospace Medicine and Human Performance · 2025-06-25

  reviewSenior author

  INTRODUCTION: With future manned missions that extend beyond low Earth orbit, it would be wise to anticipate all risks to astronaut health, including those relevant to ophthalmology and the ocular surface. Corneal edema has been documented among mice experiments conducted onboard the Space Transportation System mission, STS-133, owing to increased stress response gene expression. METHODS: A targeted, relevant search of the literature on topics relating to ocular surface and spaceflight was conducted with scholarly databases PubMed, Web of Science, and Embase from inception to July 2024. RESULTS: From our search results we identified 12,742 articles, 485 of which met the scope of our initial literature search criteria. Following refinement, 99 articles were included in our review paper. The most frequently mentioned mechanisms of corneal edema related to spaceflight included contact lens related hypoxia (24%). Regarding treatments for corneal edema, surgical grafts (16.9%) were most common. From our data, central corneal thickness measurements in astronauts with prior refractive surgery showed no significant differences pre- and postflight: right eye mean preflight, 492 µm vs. postflight, 493.3 µm; left eye, 499 µm pre- and postflight. DISCUSSION: This knowledge may contribute to our understanding of the increased risk of ocular surface symptoms reported among astronauts. This review discusses the current literature on corneal endothelial transport physiology and the detriments of corneal edema to astronaut visual function. We also describe the diagnostic modalities we can apply to spaceflight, such as anterior segment optical coherence tomography, and offer convenient countermeasures to spaceflight-related ocular surface anomalies. In doing so, we aim to make future missions safer for human exploration. Lee R, Ong J, Sampige R, Panzo N, Memon H, Suh A, Waisberg E, Mader T, Berdahl J, Chévez-Barrios P, Lee AG. Corneal edema and the endothelium in spaceflight. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2025; 96(7):569-577.

  PublisherDOI

• Real-World Analysis of Inflammatory Dermatologic Conditions and Their Association With Keratoconus

  Cornea · 2025-07-17 · 1 citations

  article

  PURPOSE: To evaluate whether inflammatory skin conditions-including atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, seborrheic dermatitis, contact dermatitis, urticaria, and rosacea-are associated with an increased risk of keratoconus (KC). METHODS: We used data from the TriNetX Global Collaborative Network, which aggregates electronic health records from approximately 165 million patients across 19 countries. Adults aged 18 to 40 years diagnosed with each inflammatory skin condition (with no history of corneal disorders) between April 1, 2016, and August 1, 2019, were matched 1:1 with controls on demographics and known KC risk factors. Five-year KC incidence was evaluated using Kaplan-Meier and hazard ratio (HR) analyses, adjusting for potential confounders. RESULTS: Compared with controls, patients with atopic dermatitis had a significantly higher 5-year risk of KC (HR = 2.32, 95% CI, 1.54-3.50), followed by psoriasis (HR = 1.93, 95% CI, 1.23-3.04), seborrheic dermatitis (HR = 1.64, 95% CI, 1.06-2.53), contact dermatitis [HR = 1.55, 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.09-2.21], and urticaria (HR = 1.56, 95% CI, 1.02-2.38). By contrast, rosacea showed no significant association with KC (HR = 0.93, 95% CI, 0.49-1.78). CONCLUSIONS: In this large multicenter cohort, inflammatory skin diseases, except rosacea, were associated with increased risk of KC development. These findings underscore the potential shared inflammatory mechanisms in KC pathogenesis and highlight the importance of vigilant ocular monitoring in high-risk populations.

  PublisherDOI

• Management of corneal injuries in spaceflight and recommendations for planetary missions

  npj Microgravity · 2025-03-11 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  In February 1968, NASA purchased 400 antigravity ballpoint pens from the Fisher Pen Company for the Apollo Program to prevent potential harm to astronauts and equipment. Mechanical pencils previously used in microgravity posed risks like eye injuries from floating fragments penetrating the cornea. The cornea is vulnerable to abrasions, perforations, and chemical burns in such environments, affecting crewmembers aboard the International Space Station (ISS). While they undergo extensive training for emergency situations, there are inherent complexities when faced with eye injuries. In this challenging context, adapting available medications and leveraging emergency medical training is critical for addressing ocular injuries in a high-stakes environment. This paper explores ISS medications and management strategies for corneal injuries, highlighting the need to include effective medications and countermeasures in future ISS medical kits.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Looks can be deceiving: a case of Rho-associated retinitis pigmentosa sine pigmento in a 74-year-old man

  Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology · 2025-11-20

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Neuro-ophthalmic findings of Visual Snow Syndrome in Korea

  Japanese Journal of Ophthalmology · 2025-05-05

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Why Can't Transformers Learn Multiplication? Reverse-Engineering Reveals Long-Range Dependency Pitfalls

  ArXiv.org · 2025-09-30

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Language models are increasingly capable, yet still fail at a seemingly simple task of multi-digit multiplication. In this work, we study why, by reverse-engineering a model that successfully learns multiplication via \emph{implicit chain-of-thought}, and report three findings: (1) Evidence of long-range structure: Logit attributions and linear probes indicate that the model encodes the necessary long-range dependencies for multi-digit multiplication. (2) Mechanism: the model encodes long-range dependencies using attention to construct a directed acyclic graph to ``cache'' and ``retrieve'' pairwise partial products. (3) Geometry: the model implements partial products in attention heads by forming Minkowski sums between pairs of digits, and digits are represented using a Fourier basis, both of which are intuitive and efficient representations that the standard fine-tuning model lacks. With these insights, we revisit the learning dynamics of standard fine-tuning and find that the model converges to a local optimum that lacks the required long-range dependencies. We further validate this understanding by introducing an auxiliary loss that predicts the ``running sum'' via a linear regression probe, which provides an inductive bias that enables the model to successfully learn multi-digit multiplication. In summary, by reverse-engineering the mechanisms of an implicit chain-of-thought model we uncover a pitfall for learning long-range dependencies in Transformers and provide an example of how the correct inductive bias can address this issue.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Tools and methods for cataract recognition in low-resource settings: A narrative review

  PLOS Global Public Health · 2025-05-16 · 2 citations

  reviewOpen accessSenior author

  Cataracts are a leading cause of global blindness, with many low-resource populations having poor access to eye care. While much is known regarding surgical access and outcomes, less is understood about the initial detection of operable cataracts in low-resource settings. We performed a comprehensive literature review on existing and emerging cataract screening methods in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The search keywords were "cataract detection, diagnosis, assessment, and evaluation in low- and middle- income countries". 1,825 articles were identified and 62 were selected for final inclusion comprising reviews, meta-analyses, and original research studies. Only 12 studies proposed new cataract screening methods for low-income settings. We extracted data on the efficacy and cost-efficiency of these novel methods and compared them to existing conventional cataract diagnosis methods. 8 out of 12 original research works developed novel devices or imaging modalities such as low-cost ophthalmoscopes and retinal cameras for cataract detection. 7 studies leveraged non-ophthalmologist staff to test their methods, suggesting a potential benefit of employing additional personnel for cataract screening. 8 studies utilized tele-ophthalmology and artificial intelligence (AI) platforms with high cataract detection accuracy. Overall, rates of cataract diagnosis in LMICs can be increased through a multifaceted strategy involving low-cost, portable devices operated by local healthcare workers and augmented by telehealth or AI approaches. Such efforts can aid in addressing the disparity between cataract diagnosis and surgical intervention in low-resource environments. However, improvements in research infrastructure are needed to support such efforts and the ability to thoroughly evaluate new innovations.

  PublisherDOI

• The brain-eye-liver axis during spaceflight: implications of hepatic dysfunction in spaceflight associated neuro-ocular syndrome

  Life Sciences in Space Research · 2025-07-05

  review
  PublisherDOI

• Correction: Accelerated aging in space and the ocular surface

  Eye · 2025-10-15

  erratumOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Kathryn M. Beauchamp

  Biomedical Research Institute

  1407 shared

• Jonathan R. Egan

  851 shared

• Andrew M. Morris

  810 shared

• Marino S. Festa

  Children's Hospital at Westmead

  752 shared

• Julie P. Chou

  701 shared

• Tom Lim

  700 shared

• Christopher H. Mody

  University of Calgary

  692 shared

• Joshua Ong

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  652 shared

Labs

• Buffalo Co-LabPI

Awards & honors

• Groat and Alpern Awards