Kangsan Lee is a sociologist with research and teaching interests in economic sociology, organizations, the sociology of culture and art, entrepreneurship, and social networks. His research focuses on the social construction of values in rapidly evolving fields such as art markets and cryptocurrencies. He is also investigating changes in social behavior during crises, particularly how political, economic, and medical crises affect people's perceptions of existing social structures and signals. Lee's newest project involves examining how Americans are using their social ties to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. He conducted his research by creating his own dataset from a nationwide daily online survey of 36,345 Americans between April 2020 and April 2021.
His work has been published in highly reputable academic journals such as Social Forces (Oxford Academics), Poetics (Journal of Empirical Research on Culture, the Media, and the Arts; Elsevier), Journal of International Money and Finances, and Oxford Bibliographies in Sociology, as well as in book chapters. Lee's research has been supported by the Buffett Institute for International Studies, American Assembly (Columbia University), and Office of Research (Zayed University). He has also been invited to various platforms, including SkyNews Arabia 9pm News, MIT Enterprise Forum, Student Entrepreneurship (The Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the Government of India), CultureSTATS (Department of Culture and Tourism, Abu Dhabi, UAE), and Maan, the Authority of Social Contribution, Social Investment, and Entrepreneurship Accelerator Program.