People

Meet the project team behind ‘Sleeping Well in the Early Modern World’

Sasha Handley

Sasha Handley is Professor of Early Modern History at The University of Manchester and was the Principal Investigator on the ‘Sleeping well in the Early Modern World’ project.

Sasha’s research explores ideas, practices, environments, and objects relating to sleep in the early modern period, and she is an expert on material culture methodologies, women’s history, and histories of everyday life in the period.

Holly Fletcher

Holly Fletcher was a Postdoctoral Research Associate on the project ‘Sleeping well in the Early Modern World’. Her research focuses on the history of the body and its interactions with the material world in the early modern period. Prior to joining the project, Holly taught early modern history at the University of Sussex. She completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge in 2020 with a thesis examining the cultural significance of body size and shape in early modern Germany. Her book, Body Size in Early Modern Germany, was published by Oxford University Press in 2026. 

Holly is now undertaking a five-year Wellcome Trust Early Career Award at UCL, working on her project ‘The Fats of Life in the Early Modern World, 1500-1750: Matter in Multispecies Medicine’. 

Leah Astbury

Leah Astbury was a Postdoctoral Research Associate on the project ‘Sleeping well in the Early Modern World’. Between 2018 and 2022 Leah was a Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge and was the 2017/18 Molina Fellow in the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences at the Huntington Library, San Marino, US. Her research explores health, medicine and gender in the period c.1500-1750. Her book Making Babies in Early Modern England was published in 2026 by Cambridge University Press. 

Leah joined the University of Bristol in August 2024 as Lecturer in Health History.

Lucy Elliott

Lucy Elliott was a PhD student on the project Sleeping Well in the Early Modern World. She received a BA in History and MA History of Medicine from Newcastle University. Lucy’s research interests centre on early modern cultural and medical histories, with particular focus upon Britain and England’s American colonies. Her PhD thesis explored how the early modern environment and climatological change shaped the practice and perception of sleep. She completed her PhD in 2026. 

Eleanor Shaw

Eleanor Shaw was the Project Officer for ‘Sleeping well in the early modern world’ between September 2022 and December 2025, and was Research Associate in Creative Health between March and August 2026. She contributed to the management and delivery of the project, including the evaluation and dissemination of ‘Sleeping Well at Ordsall Hall’. She completed her PhD on 20th century medical journals at the University of Manchester in 2025. She is now the Early Career Fellow in Covid Commemoration at the British Library. 

Anna Fielding

Anna was Project Officer for ‘Sleeping Well at Ordsall Hall’. Anna translated the research of the academic team into workshops and events for Ordsall Hall’s visitors and school groups. She recreated early modern sleep remedies using produce from the garden, and linked domestic sleep care to the surrounding environment. Her work ensured that the project’s research on early modern sleep was accessible to all. Anna worked with the National Trust for several years on collaborative academic projects, including during her PhD. Anna received her PhD in 2023 from Manchester Metropolitan University, for her thesis on early modern commensality (eating together) and National Trust properties in the north west of England. Her research includes work on how to effectively combine historical research with heritage and public engagement.

Abi Greenall

Abi Greenall was a teaching fellow in Early Modern History and Postdoctoral Research Associate to Sleeping Well in the Early Modern World. She contributed to a qualitative and quantitative analysis of sleep related recipes in manuscript recipe books using NVIVO. 

In 2023, Abi held a Visiting Fellowship at the John Rylands Research Institute and Library and completed her PhD at the University of Manchester the same year. Her research uncovers the significance of ‘happiness’ as a socio-cultural practice rooted in the interaction between human bodies, material objects, ideas and feelings in the early modern British World, c. 1550 – 1800.

Ellen Sophie Werner

Ellen Sophie Werner is a Postdoctoral Research Associate on the project. Her research focuses on early modern cultures of reading, annotated books and manuscripts, and books as material objects. Ellen also has an interest in early modern apothecaries. Ellen completed her PhD at the University of Manchester in 2026. She completed an undergraduate degree in English and Latin at the University of Bamberg, Germany, before moving to London, where she received an MA in Early Modern Literature: Text and Transmission from King’s College London in 2022.