Michael Lee

Bio

Michael Lee is a doctoral candidate in the School of Public Administration at UNO. A native of Singapore, he received both his Master’s in Public Administration and Bachelor’s in Geography from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Before pursuing his Ph.D. at UNO, Michael worked in various state and local governments, including the City of Vineyard, Utah, in the planning department, the Mountainland Association of Governments in the transportation department, and in the Office of the Utah State Auditor as a Junior Staff Auditor.

He has also been heavily involved in academia through his roles as a teaching and research assistant in both his undergraduate and graduate programs. Michael is also passionate about applied research and is currently working as a graduate research assistant at the Center for Public Affairs Research at UNO on various projects involving demographic and workforce analysis, education and youth surveys, mobility and healthcare assistance, housing perceptions, transportation finance, and rural transit.

Michael has served as an instructor for a variety of undergraduate classes at UNO and is the secretary of ASPA’s Section on Democracy and Social Justice. Michael’s research interests include the effects of transportation policy and budgeting on rural transit equity, fiscal discipline in pension management, AI in government finance, Cross-sector collaboration, and nonprofit resiliency and education.

Education

Doctoral Candidate (4th Year), School of Public Administration, University of Nebraska at Omaha

M.P.A. (2021), Marriott School of Management, Brigham Young University

B.S. in Urban and Regional Planning – Geography (2019), Brigham Young University

Publications

Lee, M. E. M. (forthcoming). Does a defined contribution pension plan reduce the financial burden of local governments? Evidence from Macomb County, Michigan. Municipal Finance Journal.

Lee, M. E. M., Hoang, T., & Maher, C. S. (2024). What are cash-balance pension plans and how do they compare? Public Finance Journal, 1(2), 137–158. https://doi.org/10.59469/pfj.2024.11

Lee, M. E. M. (2024). Public budgeting best practices for cross-sector collaborations: Emphasizing the values of social equity, transparency and accountability, and ethics. Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs. https://doi.org/10.20899/jpna.243ptf12

Lee, M. E. M., Hayes, D., & Maher, C. S. (2024). AI as a budgeting tool: Panacea or Pandora’s box? Public Finance Journal, 1(1), 49–65. https://doi.org/10.59469/pfj.2024.6

Lee, M. E. M., & Benenson, J. (2025). League of Women Voters: Case study in democratic resilience. In E. A. M. Searing & D. R. Young (Eds.), Case Studies on Nonprofit Resilience Management. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Lee, M. E. M. (2024). [Review of the book Resilience and the Management of Nonprofit Organizations: A New Paradigm, by D. R. Young & E. A. M. Searing]. Public Administration Review, 84(2), 380–382. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13805

Teaching Experience

Public Personnel Management (PA4410)

Leadership and Administration (PA2000)

Public Budgeting (PA4390)

Applied Statistics (PA3000)

Guest Lecturer – Intro to Public Administration and Public Service (UCDenver)

Honors and Awards