An-My Lê was born in Vietnam in 1960 and came to the United States as a political refugee at age fifteen. 

An-My Lê received a master’s degree in biology from Stanford University before earning an M.F.A. in photography at Yale University in 1993. Her recent exhibitions include Only Skin Deep International Center of Photography, New York (2004); Small Wars, P.S.1. Contemporary Art Center (2002); and Photographs from the Permanent Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art (2001). She is an assistant professor of photography at Bard College and lives in New York City. She is represented by the Murray Guy gallery in New York among others.