Emmeline Jean Hanson FRS (14 November 1919 – 10 August 1973) was a biophysicist and zoologist known for her contributions to muscle research.

While working at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she, with Hugh Huxley, discovered the mechanism of movement of muscle fibre in 1954, which came to known as "sliding filament theory".

At the end of sixth form, she took the Higher School Certificate gaining distinction in English, botany and zoology.

She was awarded a scholarship to attend Bedford College London after taking its entrance examination in botany, zoology and physiology.

In February 1953 she went to Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a one-year Rockefeller Fellowship and joined a fellow English postdoc Hugh Huxley to work in F. O. Schmitt's laboratory.

[8][9][10] They provided the strong evidence for the theory in 1956, in which they showed electron microscopic details of the shortening and elongation of muscle fibres against each other.

Even then the theory was not easily embraced, even in 1960 at a symposium of biomacromolecules held in Pittsburgh, Pasadena, scientists including the Nobel laureate Paul Flory argued against the sliding process.