Melissa Lau has presented at national conferences and STEM Forums for the National Science Teachers Association and is active in her state teachers’ union advocating for her profession and quality of science standards. She spends summers mentoring fellow educators through a program called Great Expectations. In 2018, Lau was selected as a PolarTREC educator and spent 32 days on the North Slope of Alaska working with a team of researchers from Florida International University studying phenology and vegetation change in the warming Arctic. In 2019, she was named the Middle Level Teacher of the Year by the Oklahoma Science Teachers Association. Most recently, Lau was named to Oklahoma’s State Department of Education Standards Review and Revision Writing committee, working specifically on high school physical science standards.