dr hee sook lee-niinioja was Born in South Korea. After receiving BA degree of journalism at Ewha Womans University in her country, she became Asian pioneer in Scandinavia - Norway  (1975) - to study fine art/design at the Norwegian National College of Art and Design, obtaining BA and MA. She continued another MA in visual communication at Syracuse University (USA), while her PhD was in architecture at Oxford Brookes University (UK).
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She has been working as artist/designer/journalist/scholar, and held many exhibitions, titled “homage to goethe/Goethe in Me” across the globe. Moreover she volunteered humanitarian work at several places, such as prisonS, hospitalS, SCHOOLS,  Tsunami victims (2004) AND NGOS, in addition to lecturing at different universities/institutes during her residence abroad as a member of the Finnish diplomatic corps. She published numerous articles in newspapers, magazines, journals and books, and presented academic papers in various disciplinaries at international conferences and symposiums. 

Particularly, for her intercultural and humanitarian work, she received many awards and appreciations, including the Civil Merit Award from President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea, and the Kuwait ruling Sabah family, Ministry of Interior, universities, and NGOs both in Kuwait and in Indonesia.

Dr. Lee-Niinioja is specialised on “Creative but logical in thinking”, “Text-image relationship”, “Comparison between Hindu-Buddhist/Christian/Islamic architectural ornamentation”, "cultural heritage", and “Scandinavian Design”, hoping to enhance dialogues between DIFFERENT FAITHS/religions through the commonness  in culture and art in  current conflicted societies.

Since her return to Finland in 2007, she has been keeping busy with research, artwork, journalism, and book projects, besides activities at Intangible Cultural Heritage Committee (ICOMOS-norway, ICOMOS-icich president) and other international organisations.