Institute staff

Find out more about the staff who lead the Rylands including our researchers and PhD students.

Guyda Armstrong, Director of the John Rylands Institute and Professor of Italian

Guyda is an early modern textual scholar who works at the intersection of book history, information design, and languages. Before joining the JRRI, as Faculty Digital Humanities Lead she directed the Manchester Digital Collections project. She leads on digital and computational approaches to the collections, media studies, and links to the creative industries.

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Stefan Hanß, Deputy Director and Scientific Lead of the John Rylands Research Institute and Professor of Early Modern History

Stefan works on early modern material culture and global history. His award-winning research explores new methodological trajectories in material culture studies, like digital microscopy and proteomics, and advances the scientific analysis of cultural heritage in collaboration with laboratories worldwide. As Scientific Lead, Stefan will promote the development of scientific approaches to the Rylands collections.

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John Hodgson, John Rylands Research Institute and Library Honorary Research Fellow

After qualifying as an archivist in 1989, John worked at The University of Manchester Library for 35 years, latterly as Associate Director (Curatorial Practices). In 2017 he completed a PhD on the manuscript collections of the earls of Crawford. His research encompasses the histories of libraries, organisations of knowledge, and the collecting of books and manuscripts.

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Julianne Simpson, Honorary Research Fellow

Julianne is Librarian at Chetham's Library Manchester, the oldest public library in Britain, founded in 1653. She was previously Collections and Discovery Manager at the Rylands with curatorial responsibility for the foreign language and literature, incunabula and East Asian printed collections. Her research interests cover the international book trade in the 16th century, early modern libraries and the study of provenance and annotation in early printed books.

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Gurtek Singh, Honorary Research Fellow

Gurtek Singh works in Education and Public Relations. Apart from teaching History and Religious Studies, he serves Sri Guru Gobind Singh Gurdwara and the Council of Five Manchester Gurdwaras, which manages community relations and events. He has worked on various decolonisation projects including Sikhs in the City for the AIU Race Centre and the Manchester Sikh Digital Heritage Exhibition for the John Rylands Research Institute. He is also a community engagement advisor for culturally sensitive items and collections.

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Richard King

Richard King is the author of 'Original Rockers' (shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize) 'How Soon Is Now?' (a Sunday Times Music Book of the Year), 'The Lark Ascending' (an Evening Standard Book of the Year, shortlisted for the Penderyn Prize) 'Brittle With Relics', a 'History of Wales 1962-1997' and the forthcoming 'Travels Over Feeling, Arthur Russell, A Life' all published by Faber and Faber. He is the current Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Cardiff University School of Journalism, Media and Culture.

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Aaron McGaughey, Grant Writer

Aaron works with Humanities researchers and JRRIL fellows to develop projects and apply for funding. Prior to joining The University of Manchester, he gained a PhD in Russian History from The University of Nottingham and worked on funded projects with partners from heritage, library and local history organisations.

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Researchers

Find out more about the many researchers and PhD students working with the Rylands.

Postdoctoral Research Fellows

Visiting Early Career Research Fellows 2024 / 2025

Visiting Early Career Research Fellows (2023 / 2024)

Anna Graham - Old age in early modern Britain as an intersectional identity in women’s life writing.
Abigail Greenall - Empire of Emotions: British Imperial Experiences of Happiness, c1570-1800
Jack O' Connor - Hulme, Manchester: A failed planner's dream to cultural incubator.

Visiting Early Career Research Fellows (2022 / 2023)

Sami Pinarbasi - Intercolonial exchanges: Slavery and the environment in British Florida and Jamaica, 1763-1783.

Visiting Early Career Research Fellows (2021 / 2022)

Richard Bellis - Trading Body Parts in Britain, 1759-1850
Jenny Buckley - A Paper Mind: Material Fictions and Print Afterlives, 1700-1820
Ben Jackson - Consuming Clergymen: Religion, Masculinity and Objects, c1603-1830
Melek Karatas - The Atelier as Network: Illumination, Agency and the Production of Vernacular Literature in France, 1320-1500
Christine Slobogin - Anonymous Anatomies: A Critical History of Visual Medical Anonymization in Britain and America, 1870-1955

Visiting Early Career Research Fellows (2020 / 2021)

Ana Dias - Image in Iberia and the Medieval West ca. 700-1080: an Intellectual History
Caroline Henaghan - Premenstrual Tensions in the 1830-1930 Archive: Taking a Medical History of Disordered Menstruation
Anna Jamieson - A Touch of the Blue Devils: Women, Mental Health and Self-Care in England, 1750-1850
Emily Price - Conversation, Consumption, and Conversion in Early Modern Europe, c. 1580-1700
James Watts - Landscape, Environment, and British Imperial Identity, 1860-1914
Hannah Yip - The Clergy and Artistic Recreation in Early Modern Britain

Research Institute Management

Kelly Jones

Research Institute Administrator

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Guyda Armstrong, Director of the John Rylands Institute and Professor of Italian

Stefan Hanß, Deputy Director and Scientific Lead of the John Rylands Research Institute and Professor of Early Modern History

John Hodgson, John Rylands Research Institute and Library Honorary Research Fellow

Julianne Simpson, Honorary Research Fellow

Gurtek Singh, Honorary Research Fellow

Richard King

Aaron McGaughey, Grant Writer

Jake Benson

Kate Gibson

Benjamin Jackson

Daniel Johnson

Roseanna Kettle

Aistė Kiltinavičiūtė

Imogen Knox

Arianna Tozzi

Kelly Jones