Rees “Chip” Lee, MD

Dr. Lee is a board-certified pediatric pulmonologist with 35 years service in the U.S. Navy. Before starting his medical career, he qualified as a surface warfare officer with five years of at-sea experience on destroyers as a navigator and communications officer. As a U.S. Navy medical officer, he spent three years as a general pediatrician and another 17 years as a pediatric pulmonologist treating children with complex lung diseases. His leadership assignments included chair of the military’s largest tertiary care pediatric department in Portsmouth, Virginia; second-in-command of the hospital ship USNS COMFORT; commanding officer of Naval Medical Research Unit Dayton, a medical research institute conducting aerospace and toxicology research; and force surgeon of Naval Surface Force Atlantic overseeing the medical care of the 27,000 sailors assigned to the surface ships of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet. He has deployed multiple times to the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Central and South America, including an assignment as the senior medical officer of the NATO Role 3 Trauma Hospital in Kandahar, Afghanistan. 

Following his retirement from the Navy, Dr. Lee joined the University of Arizona as an associate professor in pediatric pulmonology and provides clinical care at Diamond Children’s Hospital and at the Children’s Clinics. His current research interests include developing solutions to address pediatric respiratory diseases on the Navajo Nation and using large databases to conduct outcomes research on respiratory issues.