Le was born in Huế near the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone to a Buddhist family.[1] Her father was a urologist who wished to remain in the country.[1] After he was sent to a concentration camp and the Cambodian–Vietnamese War began, the family decided to they needed to escape.[1] By obtaining false documents identifying them as a Chinese-Vietnamese family, they were able to leave the country as part of the Vietnamese boat people.[1] After a perilous journey that involved being robbed by Thai pirates, the family arrived in Malaysia.[1] They remained there in a beach camp supported by the International Red Cross for a month before being picked up by an Italy vessel and accepted as refugees.[1] Le's family lived in Italy for two years while she completed middle school.[1] In 1981, the family immigrated to Northern California where she completed high school.[1]
Le majored in biology and chemistry at the California Institute of Technology.[1] During her undergraduate studies, she completed three summer research fellowships.[1] During one of these fellowships, Le's professor, Edwin S. Munger, encouraged her to research at a university and hospital in Durban which inspired her to pursue medicine.[1] Le earned a M.D. from University of California, San Francisco in 1993.[2] She decided to pursue radiation oncology after studying under Karen King-Wah Fu.[1] She conducted an internal medicine internship at the Highland Hospital in 1994.[2] Lee completed a radiation oncology residency at the University of California, San Francisco in 1997.[2]
In 1997, Le joined the Stanford University School of Medicine as a clinical instructor focused on brain and lung cancers.[1][2] In 2004, she became a co-director of the radiation biology program at the Stanford Cancer Institute.[2] She worked in the laboratory of Amato J. Giaccia.[1] In 2011, she succeeded Richard Hoppe MD as the chair of the department of radiation oncology.[1] The same year, she was elected a fellow of the American College of Radiology.[2] In 2013, Le was elected to the Institute of Medicine.[3] In 2014, she was elected a fellow of the American Society of Therapeutic Radiation Oncology.[2] Her research program focuses on radiation therapy in head and neck cancer.[2] Le is the Katherine Dexter McCormick and Stanley McCormick Memorial Professor and chair of the department of radiation oncology.[2]
