Lai was Associate Professor at the School of Creative Media at the City University of Hong Kong;[1] she retired on 1 July 2023.

[2] She is the founder and artistic director of the Writing Machine Collective and runs a self-funded art space called Floating Projects[3] and works as an independent curator of moving image.

[4] Lai's artworks are primarily experiments with various forms of video and installation, based on her research in experimental historiography.

[5] Her works have been exhibited widely in Hong Kong and worldwide in cities including Shanghai, Torun, Paris, Barcelona, Kuala Lumpur, London, Taipei, Seoul, New York City and Montreal, and several times in International Competition at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (2005, 2009, 2011).

(Wheaton College, Illinois – communication & journalism) and Ph.D. (New York University – Cinema Studies) in the United States.