Lee Rainie is the Director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a non-profit, non-partisan "fact tank" that studies the social impact of the internet. The Project has issued more than 175 reports based on its surveys that examine people's online activities and the internet's role in their lives.

Lee is a co-author of Up for Grabs and Hopes and Fears and Ubiquity, Mobility, Security, a series about the future of the internet published by Cambria Press.

He is also co-authoring a book for MIT Press about the social impact of technology with sociologist Barry Wellman that will be published in 2011. The working title is Networking: The New Social Operating System.

Prior to launching the Pew Internet Project, Lee was managing editor of the newsweekly magazine U.S. News & World Report. He is a graduate of Harvard University and has a master's degree in political science from Long Island University.