Traci Hancock

Ms. Traci Hancock is the Chief Contracts and Finance Officer of the Nebraska Defense Research Corporation at the University of Nebraska, a non-profit affiliate company of the University of Nebraska, which promotes, encourages, and assists academic innovation and discovery and is designed to identify, evaluate, and assist innovation and technology transfer in support of U.S. national security objectives.

At NDRC, Ms. Hancock provides executive oversight of the corporation's financial stewardship, contract lifecycle, and internal support functions, serving as a central link between the Chief Executive Officer, department heads, the board of directors, and external stakeholders.

Her responsibilities include:

• Financial stewardship of NDRC, including financial modeling, forecasting, and annual budget development
• Contract and regulatory compliance management across the full contract lifecycle
• Development of contract administration policies, standard operating procedures, and agreement templates
• Assessment of NDRC and subcontractor compliance programs to identify and mitigate risk
• Safeguarding corporate assets and ensuring compliance with regulatory and tax requirements

Before joining NDRC, Hancock served as the Director of Business Operations at Scott Data Center in Omaha. She held oversight of the full contract lifecycle — customer engagement, drafting of contracts and amendments, negotiation, and the internal review workflows ensuring agreements were sound from both a legal and a requirements perspective. She managed departmental budgets and served on the leadership team formulating the organization's annual budget, strategy, and operating plans.

As Deputy Director for Strategic Engagement and Innovation at the National Strategic Research Institute, the University of Nebraska's Department of Defense University-Affiliated Research Center, Ms. Hancock developed programming to strengthen the Institute's relationships with academic researchers, faculty, and students.

She previously led the Innovation Accelerator, a public-private partnership with the National Science Foundation’s SBIR program that maintained relationships with more than 200 federally funded startups annually, along with a national network of technology scouts, mentors, and university laboratories. Across this work she helped both early-stage startups and established companies recognize where their technology fit an industry, government, or defense requirement.

Ms. Hancock holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of Rhode Island and a Master of Philosophy in Medieval History from the University of Cambridge, St. John's College. She lives in Omaha with her husband, Sean.