Gail G. Hanson, born 22 February 1947 in Dayton, Ohio^[1] is an American experimental particle physicist.

Hanson received her PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1973.^[2] She spent sixteen years at SLAC, first as a research assistant and then as a permanent staff member.^[3] Whilst there, Hanson participated in the discovery of the J/psi meson and tau lepton. Her work led to the first evidence for quark jet production in electron-positron annihilation,^[4] for which she was awarded the 1996 Panofsky Prize with Roy Schwitters.^[3]

In 2002 she was appointed Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of California, Riverside.^[2]

• Fellow of the American Physical Society^[5]
• Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science^[6]
• John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow^[7]
• Winner of the W.K.H. Panofsky Prize in Experimental Particle Physics from the American Physical Society (1996)^[3]