Yong-Hwan Lee’s research has focused on using multi-pronged approaches to attain a comprehensive understanding of the molecular and genomic basis of rice blast disease, caused by Magnaporthe oryzae. His works are widely acknowledged through the development and scope of a wet lab approaches he has used to dissect the mechanisms of infection as well as the creation of several powerful bioinformatics platforms for comparative and evolutionary fungal genomics. He was the Presidents of Korean Society of Plant Pathology and Asian Association of Societies for Plant Pathology. He is currently the President of International Society for Plant Pathology.