Laura Niyazbekkyzy Toktarbekova was born on 9 February 1980 in the village of Pokrovka, Tarbagatai District, East Kazakhstan Region. From 2000 to 2005 she studied at Kainar University, majoring in “Kazakh Language and Literature: Foreign Language”. In 2013 she enrolled in the master’s programme in “6M020900 – Oriental Studies” at Abai Kazakh National Pedagogical University, and in 2015 she was awarded the degree of Master of Humanities in Oriental Studies. In 2016, within the framework of an integration programme for the training of research staff between “Gylym Ordasy”, the research institutes and al-Farabi Kazakh National University, she entered the PhD doctoral programme in “6D020600 – Religious Studies”. In 2020 she defended her dissertation on “The Islamic Tradition in Kazakhstan’s Cultural and Social Space: A Religious Studies Analysis” and obtained the PhD degree in “6D020600 – Religious Studies”. She began her professional career in 2000 as a junior researcher in the editorial office of the journal Bilim-Obrazovanie of the Ybyrai Altynsarin Academy of Education. At the Institute of Philosophy, Political Science and Religious Studies she worked as a senior laboratory assistant from 2005, as a junior researcher from 2009 to 2012, and since 2018 as a researcher in the Department of Religious Studies. In 2019–2020 she served as Academic Secretary, and in 2020–2021 as Chief Academic Secretary. Since 2021 she has held the position of Leading Researcher at the Centre for Religious Studies of the Institute.