Dr. Gloria
Lau

Gloria Lau is the cofounder/CEO of Alpha Medical, with a mission to improve access to women’s healthcare needs.

She has over a decade of experience in data science and machine learning, ranging from small startups to large public companies. Gloria headed up data products at Linkedin, and was VP of Data at Timeful which was acquired by Google.

She is a consulting faculty at Stanford Engineering and a mentor at Stanford’s StartX incubator. She has an MS and PhD from Stanford, and a BS from UCLA.

Dr. Lau is listed on 11 patents in the area of recommendation systems and data science, and an author of over 40 academic papers on information retrieval systems

What drives you to want to help entrepreneurs?

As an engineer by training, I genuinely enjoy building something from 0 to 1, and I am fascinated with technology that creates impact and value in the world. As an entrepreneur, I root for our collective success and I love seeing us pushing the boundaries with innovation. Personally, I find that honest feedback from other entrepreneurs are the best help I’ve gotten and the hardest to come by, and I’d love to pay it forward.

Most fun thing you’ve built?

So many and so hard to pick one! I’d say college ranking by career outcome was one of the most fun things I’ve built. I am a data geek and taking a radical view on college ranking with actual data on career outcome was super fun, new and impactful.

What’s an important professional lesson you’ve learned?

Embrace the beauty of simplicity! Whether it’s product design, coding style or team communications, stick to the simple, and edit for clarity.

A favorite place you’ve been, that you can’t wait to get back to?

Hong Kong! I was born and raised in Hong Kong, and it will forever have a special place in my heart. The people, the culture, the food, the mad rush to everything in a tiny city, everything about it is unique.

What’s something—big or small—that you’re really bad at?

Cooking. I am hopeless, and I have no aspiration to be better either.