Professor Hoffman is interested in how electrons behave within exotic materials. Her research team at Harvard has designed and constructed three low-temperature scanning probe microscopes to visualize and manipulate this behavior directly. Innovative techniques include quasiparticle interference imaging to extract the band structure of materials at the nanoscale, and force microscopy to trigger nanoscale electronic phase transitions. Materials of particular interest include high temperature superconductors, topological insulators, and strongly correlated vanadates, all of which present deep physics questions as well as potential for novel applications.