Faculty Directory

Hancock, Scott

Hancock, Scott

Postdoctoral Research Associate
Institute for Research in Electronics & Applied Physics
0139 Energy Research Facility

EDUCATION

  • Ph.D., Physics, University of Maryland, 2023
  • M.S., Engineering Physics, Appalachian State University, 2017

BACKGROUND

Dr. Scott Hancock received an M.S. in engineering physics from Appalachian State University in 2017 and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2023.  During his Ph.D. he studied spatiotemporal optical vortices, and, during his M.S., he worked with Raman spectroscopy and optical trapping.  He initially joined IREAP as a graduate student in Professor Howard Milchberg's Intense Laser Matter Interactions group in 2017 and transitioned to a Postdoctoral Research Associate within the same group in 2023.  As a postdoc, he conducts experiments and simulations on structured light, orbital angular momentum of light, nonlinear measurements, and light-matter interactions.

AWARDS

  • Monroe H. Martin Graduate Research Fellowship (2023)
  • University of Maryland Graduate School, Outstanding Graduate Assistant Award (2022)
  • IREAP's Best Graduate Student Seminar Speaker Award for his talk titled "Free-space Propagation of Spatiotemporal Optical Vortices" (Spring 2020)

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Dr. Hancock's research interests include but are not necessarily limited to nonlinear optics, structured light, light-matter interactions, ultrashort lasers, and laser filamentation. 

Google Scholar

New Laser Experiment Spins Light Like a Merry-go-round

Physical Review X Publishes Article by Team Led by Howard Milchberg

Somersaulting Photons

In a paper published today in Optica, Professor Milchberg’s group demonstrates the surprising result that photons in vacuum can have orbital angular momentum vectors pointing sideways.

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