{"id":46,"date":"2021-02-16T18:33:19","date_gmt":"2021-02-16T18:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/davynotebooks\/?page_id=46"},"modified":"2026-04-12T14:36:47","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T14:36:47","slug":"the-project-team","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/davynotebooks\/the-project-team\/","title":{"rendered":"The Project Team"},"content":{"rendered":"

Principal Investigator and Postdoctoral Research Assistants<\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Professor Sharon Ruston<\/a>\u00a0is the Davy Notebooks Project\u2019s Principal Investigator. She is Professor of Romanticism in the\u00a0Department of English Literature and Creative Writing, Lancaster University<\/a>. Her main research interests are in the relations between the literature, science, and medicine of the Romantic period, 1780-1820. Her first book,\u00a0Shelley and Vitality<\/em>\u00a0(Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), explored the medical and scientific contexts which inform Shelley’s concept of vitality in his major poetry. In 2010, she published\u00a0Romanticism: An Introduction<\/em>\u00a0(Continuum). In 2013, she published\u00a0Creating Romanticism: Case Studies in the Literature, Science, and Medicine of the 1790s<\/em>\u00a0(Palgrave Macmillan). With Tim Fulford, she co-edited\u00a0The Collected Letters of Sir Humphry Davy<\/em>, published in four volumes by Oxford University Press in 2020. (Zooniverse username: sruston).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Dr Andrew Lacey<\/a>\u00a0is the Davy Notebooks Project\u2019s Senior PDRA. He is Senior Research Associate in the\u00a0Department of English Literature and Creative Writing, Lancaster University<\/a>. He has research interests in Romantic-period writing (especially the poetry of Shelley and Wordsworth, and the relationships of their writings to philosophy, especially of death), in late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century letter writing (particularly that of Davy), and in the theory and practice of scholarly editing. He was formerly research assistant (also Senior Research Associate) on\u00a0The Collected Letters of Sir Humphry Davy<\/em>, and is currently finishing a book on Shelley\u2019s visions of death. From March 2019 onwards, Andrew designed, built, and was responsible for the day-to-day management of the Davy Notebooks Project pilot project on Zooniverse. He is currently responsible for the day-to-day management of the full project on Zooniverse. (Zooniverse username: aplacey; social media signature from late April 2021: ^AL).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Dr Eleanor Bird<\/a>\u00a0is a Research Associate on the Davy Notebooks Project, based in the\u00a0Department of English Literature and Creative Writing, Lancaster University<\/a>. She was awarded her PhD on ‘Canada and Slavery in Transatlantic Print Culture’ at the University of Sheffield in 2018. Eleanor has published articles on Mary Prince and Susanna Moodie in\u00a0Notes & Queries<\/em>, and has work on slavery in Quebec\u2019s newspapers forthcoming (2021) in the\u00a0Journal of Transatlantic Studies<\/em>. She is currently researching Humphry Davy\u2019s racial politics and connections to the transatlantic slave trade, slavery, and colonialism. Eleanor joined the Project in April 2021. (Zooniverse username: Eleanor_Lucy_Bird).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Dr Alexis Wolf<\/a>\u00a0is a Research Associate on the Davy Notebooks Project, in the\u00a0Department of English Literature and Creative Writing, Lancaster University<\/a>. She was awarded her PhD on \u2018Women\u2019s Writing, Manuscript Culture and Transnational Travel, 1798-1840\u2019 by Birkbeck, University of London in 2018. She has published her research in\u00a0European Romantic Review<\/em>\u00a0(2019), with forthcoming articles in\u00a0Studies in Romanticism<\/em>\u00a0and the\u00a0Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies<\/em>. She is co-editor of\u00a0The Palgrave Handbook of Women in Science Since 1660<\/em> (2021) and is currently working on her first book, which examines manuscript circulation within women\u2019s transnational networks in the Romantic period. (Zooniverse username: a_s_wolf).<\/p>\n

Co-Investigators<\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Dr Samantha Blickhan is a Co-Investigator on the Davy Notebooks Project. She is the Humanities Lead for\u00a0Zooniverse<\/a>\u00a0and Co-Director of the Zooniverse team at Chicago\u2019s\u00a0Adler Planetarium<\/a>. Her duties include guiding the strategic vision for Zooniverse humanities efforts and managing development of new tools and resources, which have been supported by funding from the Institute of Museum & Library Services, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Science Foundation, American Council of Learned Societies, and the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. She is Co-I of the\u00a0Collective Wisdom project<\/a>, which will produce an authoritative book on the ‘state of the art’ in cultural heritage crowdsourcing in 2021. (Zooniverse username: blicksam).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Professor Frank James<\/a>\u00a0is a Co-Investigator on the Davy Notebooks Project. He is Professor of History of Science at\u00a0University College London<\/a>. He edited\u00a0The Correspondence of Michael Faraday<\/em> (six volumes, 1991-2012). He is currently researching, with a view to writing a book on, Humphry Davy\u2019s practical work, having always had a strong interest in the relations of science with other areas of society and culture, including the military, art (where he co-authored a book on the scientific and technological content of paintings in the National Gallery), religion, and technology.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Dr Joanna Taylor<\/a>\u00a0is a Co-Investigator on the Davy Notebooks Project. She is Presidential Academic Fellow in Digital Humanities at the\u00a0University of Manchester<\/a>. Her research focuses on nineteenth-century literary geographies and spatial poetics, and explores the uses of digital technologies as an intersection between literary analysis and environmental studies. She has published widely in journals including\u00a0Studies in Romanticism<\/em>,\u00a0Journal of Arts and Humanities Computing<\/em>, and\u00a0International Journal of Geographical Information Science<\/em>. Her book, co-authored with Ian Gregory and titled\u00a0Deep Mapping the Literary Lake District<\/em>, is forthcoming with Bucknell University Press. (Zooniverse username: JoTayl0r0).<\/p>\n

Lancaster Digital Collections and Library Staff<\/strong><\/p>\n

The following current and former staff of Lancaster University Library<\/a> contributed to the development of the completed collection of notebooks on Lancaster Digital Collections<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Andy Hartland,\u00a0Adrian Albin-Clark,\u00a0<\/span>Neil Horton, Annette Lawrence, Liz Fawcett, Phil Cheeseman, Tim Leonard and Tom Shaw<\/p>\n

Advisory Board, Research Assistance, and Technical Assistance<\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Davy Notebooks Project Advisory Board, in addition to the Project team, comprises Dr Wahida Amin,\u00a0Dr Adelene Buckland<\/a>\u00a0(King\u2019s College London<\/a>),\u00a0Professor Dame Athene Donald<\/a>\u00a0(University of Cambridge<\/a>),\u00a0Professor Jan Golinski<\/a>\u00a0(University of New Hampshire<\/a>), Professor Richard Holmes,\u00a0Professor Alice Jenkins<\/a>\u00a0(University of Glasgow<\/a>),\u00a0Professor Mark Miodownik<\/a>\u00a0(University College London<\/a>),\u00a0Charlotte New<\/a>\u00a0(Royal Institution of Great Britain<\/a>),\u00a0Professor Jim Secord<\/a>\u00a0(University of Cambridge<\/a>),\u00a0Professor Shelley Trower<\/a>\u00a0(University of Roehampton<\/a>), and\u00a0Dr Gregory Tate<\/a>\u00a0(University of St Andrews<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Alexander Theo Giesen, an MSc student in History and Philosophy of Science in the Science and Technology Studies Department at UCL<\/a>, worked on the project between June and August 2021 on a UCL STS Summer Studentship.<\/p>\n

Stella Liu and Clara Ng worked on the project between June and August 2022 on\u00a0UCL STS Summer Studentships<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mandy Huynh, Clara Ng, and Shreya Rana worked on the project between June and August 2023 on UCL STS Summer Studentships<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dr Brigitte Stenhouse and Dr Nicolas Michel provided specialist assistance with the transcription of RI MS HD\/21\/A.<\/p>\n

Michal Radecki, a Computer Sciences graduate of the\u00a0School of Computing and Communications, Lancaster University<\/a>, provides specialist technical assistance in the processing of project data. (Zooniverse username: radickim).<\/p>\n

Maaria Mehmood and Luana Olteanu worked on the project between January and March 2025 during a placement with Lancaster University.<\/p>\n

Rachel McLean, Luana Olteanu and Georgia Platt worked on the project between June and July 2025 during a placement with Lancaster University.<\/p>\n

Olivia Burrows and Will Cook worked on the project between January and March 2026 during a placement with Lancaster University. Will Cook undertook further work on the project between April and June 2026 during a placement with Lancaster University Library.<\/p>\n

Ivan Kounte and Will Cook developed a research workbench<\/a> allowing the Davy Notebooks to be analysed using the latest natural-language processing techniques as part of course project work in Lancaster University’s School of Computing and Communications<\/a>. Ivan’s original work, developed in 2025, was extended and enhanced by Will Cook during his January-March 2026 work placement.<\/p>\n

We particularly want to thank two of our volunteers who continued to work on the project after the funding had ended and took on full editorial roles: David Hardy and Thomas Schmidt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Principal Investigator and Postdoctoral Research Assistants Professor Sharon Ruston\u00a0is the Davy Notebooks Project\u2019s Principal Investigator. She is Professor of Romanticism in the\u00a0Department of English Literature and Creative Writing, Lancaster University. Her main research interests are in the relations between the… Continue Reading The Project Team<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":456,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-46","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/davynotebooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/46","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/davynotebooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/davynotebooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/davynotebooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/456"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/davynotebooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/davynotebooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/46\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1212,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/davynotebooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/46\/revisions\/1212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/davynotebooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}