Lily Sanchez is a Supervising Chemist at the Orange County Water District’s Philip L. Anthony Water Quality Laboratory, where she has been directly involved in developing and leading the PFAS testing program for over a decade. With more than 30 years of experience in environmental analytical chemistry, she has hands-on expertise and method development, regulatory compliance, and HPLC, GC, GC/MS, and LC-MS/MS workflows - supporting EPA Methods 533, 537.1, in-house Method CEC, and the EPA 500-series for drinking water analysis. While her primary focus is PFAS, Lily’s broad technical background has been instrumental in modernizing the lab’s workflows, from manual solid-phase extraction to fully automated systems and implementing cost-saving innovations such as in-house internal standard preparation. She is committed to maintaining rigorous quality systems, ensuring every method is backed by robust QC protocols, traceable documentation, and defensible data packages in compliance with EPA, UCMR5, and TNI standards. Beyond the bench, Lily is passionate about fostering a collaborative lab culture, mentoring early-career scientists, and bridging the gap between regulatory requirements and real-world lab implementation. She actively collaborates with regional labs and vendors to promote scalable, sustainable PFAS monitoring strategies across the industry.