Professor Fahad Mahmood's research lab at the University of Illinois will develop and apply non-linear optical and time-resolved photoemission spectroscopies to solve problems at the intersection of strongly correlated quantum materials and non-equilibrium phenomena. One of the principal goals is to use laser light to engineer electronic interactions in materials, probe their spatial and temporal correlations, and realize model Hamiltonians and novel phases of matter. Typical experiments will use a laser pulse to perturb a particular material in different ways, e.g., by coupling to charge or spin degrees of freedom, exciting specific collective modes or modifying the local energy landscape over short (femtosecond) timescales. Custom-built spectroscopic tools such as time-resolved ARPES and time-domain THz spectroscopy will then be used to examine the resulting evolution of electronic states, measure changes in low-energy electrodynamics and disentangle coupled excitations. Projects and materials will be varied but will likely include unconventional superconductors, topological systems and frustrated magnets.