Born in 1939, in Taiwan, China. After earning his master's degree and doctorate in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M University, Wen Ho Lee joined the staff of the Los Alamo's National Laboratory in Los Alamo's, New Mexico, in 1978. He and his wife Sylvia, who also worked at Los Alamo's, have two children, Alberta and Tse Chung. In the late 1990s, Lee became the focus of a federal investigation aimed at uncovering the possible sale of U.S. nuclear secrets to China. Though he lost his job at Los Alamo's and spent almost a year in jail as a result of the government’s suspicions, 58 of 59 felony charges against Lee were eventually dropped and he was released. Los Alamo's, created during World War II for the purpose of building the world’s first atom bomb, is one of three national weapons labs owned by the Department of Energy and a major site of the U.S. government's nuclear weapons research. In the late 1970s, Lee began working in the laboratory's X division, which designed U.S. bombs and warheads. In his position as a mid level scientist, Lee specialized in simulating shock waves generated by nuclear blasts using computers.