Dr. Lau received her Ph.D. from the University of Sydney, Australia, where her research focused on the development of novel diagnostic platforms for invasive fungal diseases. She completed her CPEP Clinical Microbiology Fellowship training at the NIH and is board-certified through the American Board of Medical Microbiology. In 2013, she joined the Clinical Microbiology Service at the NIH Clinical Center where she co-directed the Bacteriology, Specimen Processing, Parasitology, and Molecular Epidemiology sections. In 2018, Dr. Lau was promoted to Chief of the newly created Sterility Testing Service to support the NIH cGMP program for cell therapy and drug pharmaceutical manufacturing. Dr. Lau champions the education of clinical and pharmaceutical colleagues for GMP testing within a hospital environment. Her current research involves the development and evaluation of rapid microbial test methods for sterility testing and Mycoplasma testing. Dr. Lau serves on the 2023-2025 USP Microbiology Expert Committee, PDA Microbiology organizing committee, editorial board for the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, and is an Associate Editor for Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology.