Laura Marcu is Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Neurological Surgery at the University of California at Davis. She received her Ph.D. in biomedical engineering in 1998 from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. She is the founding director of the recently established (2022) NIH-NIBIB P41 Center – the National Center for Interventional Biophotonic Technologies at UC Davis. Since 2007 she has served as co-director of the Comprehensive Cancer Center – Biomedical Technology Program, at the UC Davis Medical Center. Her research interest is in the area of biomedical optics, with a particular focus on research for the development of optical techniques for tissue diagnostics including applications in surgical oncology, interventional cardiology, and tissue engineering. She has published a book as well as over 240 co-authored publications. Currently, she is a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of Biophotonics and the Translational Biophotonics, and Associate Editor for Optica. She is a Fellow of AAAS, AIMBE, BMES, OSA, SPIE, and NAI.