My name is Hannah Sophie Heinrichs. I'm a psychologist and PhD candidate in circadian neuroscience, working at the intersection of human sleep, circadian rhythms, light, and health.
My research combines rigorous laboratory protocols with real-world behavioural monitoring to better understand individual differences in circadian timing and sleep-wake regulation. I work in interdisciplinary teams, design human studies, and develop reproducible workflows to analyse multimodal, longitudinal data - aiming to model circadian rhythms and clarify the physiological mechanisms in both healthy and clinical contexts.
I'm motivated to translate behavioural and clinical evidence into actionable, sustainable approaches that support people experiencing sleep-wake difficulties, especially when these intersect with mental health problems.
After earning an M.Sc. in Cognitive-Affective Neuroscience from TU Dresden with top distinction, I joined the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics as a research scientist while being enrolled as a doctoral candidate in circadian and visual neuroscience at TU Munich. My academic stays abroad include at University of Stockholm and the Radboud University in Nijmegen, and I am currently abroad as a guest scientist at the University of Edinburgh.
Education
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Ph.D., Circadian Neuroscience, 2022 - today
Max Planck Institite for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany Technical University Munich, Germany University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom -
M.Sc., Cognitive-Affective Neuroscience, 2019 - 2022
Technical University Dresden, Germany -
B.Sc., Psychology, 2015 - 2018
University of Bonn, Germany