Peter Lai has been working with patents since 2017. He joined Zimmermann & Partner in 2019. He received an M. Eng. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Bristol, during which he specialised in ultrasonic transducers and lab-on-chip devices, the latter of which appeared on BBC. For his PhD at Imperial College London, he turned to Geoscience, where he worked on the development and application of X-ray microtomography for the characterization of the properties of permeable rocks relevant to water-rock chemical reactions. His work was funded by Shell, during which he also collaborated with Zeiss X-ray Microscopy in California, Diamond Synchrotron, and the Natural History Museum in London.