Miles John Padgett (born 1 June 1963[4][5]) is a Royal Society Research Professor of Optics in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Glasgow.

[7] He has held the Kelvin Chair of Natural Philosophy since 2011[8][2][9][10][11] and served as Vice Principal for research at Glasgow from 2014 to 2020.

In 2014 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) – the UK's National Academy of Science.

His best known contributions include an optical spanner for spinning micron-sized objects, use of orbital angular momentum to increase the data capacity of communication systems and an angular form of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) quantum paradox.

[4] Padgett was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2020 Birthday Honours for services to scientific research and outreach.