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Dr Lau is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Malaya, and previously served as Deputy Dean (Postgraduate) of the Faculty of Economics and Administration (2020-21), and Head of Department (Applied Statistics) for two terms (2013-14 and 2021). He joined the Faculty upon completing his doctoral studies in 2006. 

Prior to joining academia, he worked for several years in financial institutions before being awarded the Monbusho Scholarship (MEXT) by the Japanese Government. He pursued his postgraduate study at the Graduate School of Economics, Osaka University, under the supervision of Emeritus Professor Kazuhiko Nishina, Professor of Finance,  Dean of the Graduate School of Economics and Vice President of Osaka University. In addition to presenting his work at Nippon Finance Association Conference in Tokyo (2004 & 2005), he was selected twice for the Asian FA / FMA Doctoral Student award for the Asian Finance Association Conference in Taipei (2004), Kuala Lumpur (2005) and Auckland (2006). 

Apart from lecturing Statistics and Econometrics at FEA, he was invited to teach International Finance and Financial Econometrics at the Faculty and Graduate School of Business (GSB), University of Malaya, and IUMW between 2009 and 2010. From Sept 2012 to May 2013, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Risk Management Institute, National University of Singapore (NUS), a research group member in credit rating dynamics. He also attended the Executive Education Program in Portfolio Management, Asset Allocation and Behavioral Finance conducted by Emeritus Professor Burton Malkiel, Yacine Ait-Shalia, Harrison Hong and colleagues at the Bendheim Center for Finance, Princeton University, in June 2013. He was invited by the Malaysian Productivity Centre (MPC) to collaborate in the Competitiveness Opinion Survey 2014-2015 and contribute to Malaysia's Business Optimism Index (BOI) study by Dun & Bradstreet, authoring a professional text for the Malaysian Insurance Institute (MII) from 2014 to 2015, and participated in a consultative project with RAM Holdings Berhad in 2020-21.  

He has worked and supervised students in applied finance, financial economics, econometrics and capital market. 15 of his PhD students have graduated and another four have submitted their theses for viva voce. His earlier work confirms the relationship between equity style and fund performance (MF, 2007). His later work establishes economic content and information transmission in equity-style indices as leading economic indicators (Ekonomie a Mgmt, 2015). His joint work with his PhD student has new findings for spot futures relation in Crude Palm Oil Market (Resources Policy, 2017; J. Commodity Markets, 2020; NAJEF, 2021; JES, 2023). His recent work explores market participants' trading behaviour in the Japanese Stock Market during QE tapering (APFM, 2019) and Indonesian Stock Market (ICMR, 2021).

He has been invited to present his work at BNM Economics Research Workshop, Asian Finance Association Conference, Nippon Finance Association Conference, JEPA International Conference (Awaji Yumeibutai International Conference Center), Japan Finance Association (Kobe & Tokyo), PBFEAM Conference, Malaysian Finance Association International Conference (MFAIC), Malaysian Statistics Conference (MyStats), FAEA Conference, ISI Regional Conference, BMEB Conference by Bank Indonesia Institute in Bali, 13th NCTU and 16th NYCU  International Finance Conference (National Yang-Ming Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan), ISBIS Conference in Barcelona, Piraeus, and Kuala Lumpur, DTI Conference organised by the Institute of Economics (Ural Branch) of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dr Lau received the Best Paper Award at the 23rd and 24th Malaysian Finance Association International Conference in 2021 and 2022 and the Call for Paper Award (Best Paper) at the University-Industry Talent Bridging Conference organised by the Institute for Capital Market Research Malaysia (ICMR) in 2023.

Dr Lau is an Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute (ISI), ISBIS Council Member, Associate Research Fellow of MIER and EXCO member of the Malaysian Economic Association (MEA). He has also served as Jan Tinbergen Awards Committee member under the International Statistical Institute (ISI). Before this, he was the Hon. Secretary (2018 to 2022) and Hon. Treasurer (2014-2018) of MEA. He also served as Hon. Secretary of the Malaysian Finance Association (MFA) from 2015 to 2019 and was a founding member of the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP) Malaysian chapter in 2008. Beyond academia, he was an Officer Cadet at PALAPES USM (1992-95) before being commissioned by HM The King as Reserve Officer (Lt M) on 17 June 1995.