Kei May Lau is a Research Professor at the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST).  She received her degrees from the University of Minnesota and Rice University and served as a faculty member at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst before joining HKUST in 2000. Lau is an elected member of the US National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of IEEE, Optica (formerly OSA), and the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering Sciences. She was also a recipient of the IPRM award, IET J J Thomson medal for Electronics, Optica Nick Holonyak Jr. Award, IEEE Photonics Society Aron Kressel Award, and Hong Kong Croucher Senior Research Fellowship. She was an Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices and Electron Device Letters, an Associate Editor for the Journal of Crystal Growth and Applied Physics Letters.

Lau’s research focuses on the development of monolithic integration of semiconductor devices and systems on industry-standard silicon substrates. She was an early explorer of this approach.  Her group was the first to demonstrate the highest mobility and millimeter-wave III-V transistors lattice-matched to InP grown directly on Si. She also led the development of the first 1.5 µm room-temperature electrically pumped III-V quantum dot lasers epitaxially grown on CMOS-standard (001) Si substrate by MOCVD. Recently, her group developed the lateral aspect ratio trapping (LART) technique to grow III-V active devices in the same plane as the Si layer enabling efficient coupling with Si-based passive components on silicon-on-insulator (SOI).