Seven members of the Warwick Electrochemistry and Interfaces group received their PhD degrees, alongside Honorary Graduate Greg Doran, Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, at this Summer's graduation ceremony held on Friday July 19th. Congratulations to Anisha Patel, Kim McKelvey, Kate Meadows, Tahani Bawazeer, Mike O’Connell and Lucy Tomlinson (plus Maxim Joseph – an engineer who has been ‘adopted’ by the electrochemistry group). Good luck to you all in your future endeavours!

Once again, the Warwick Electrochemistry and Interfaces Group hosted 23 young enthusiastic international students participating in the annual 'London International Youth Science Forum' (LIYSF). The students enjoyed a day full of hands-on activities, giving them a glimpse of the cutting-edge research at the electrochemistry and interfaces group.

This year, LIYSF’s underlying theme is ‘Challenging Science Boundaries’, focussing on the growing demand for an interdisciplinary approach to research and its impact on future students. Small groups of students investigated structural and electrochemical properties of in-house grown carbon nanotube network (CNT). The students got hands-on experience with electrochemical techniques, atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). They also got to build dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) devices, measure their performance and realize how closely related they are to photosynthesis!

Most important was the interaction between the young visitors and group members who both hugely inspired each other, talking over lunch.

We have hosted the LIYSF for each of the past 10 years and look forward to further visits in the future!

Special thanks go to Barak Aaronson and Binoy Paulose Nadappuram who organized the day, Paul Kirkman who prepared state-of-the-art CNTs samples and demonstrated the AFM, Rob Lazenby on the SEM and Amy Perry in the electrochemistry station. Thanks also to Dan Warr, Tom Scott, Hannah Colledge and Faduma Maddar who accompanied groups throughout the day and to all group members who got involved (Yangrae Kim and Bruno Campos Janegitz for taking pictures). Special thanks go to Christina Forbes and Nick Barker who helped with logistics.

On Saturday 22^nd June, the Birdingbury Village Club was the venue for an exclusive and intimate performance from Pat. With a two hour set, Pat played to an audience of locals and some guests from the Warwick Electrochemistry group. Playing a few of his own songs, and well known (to the over 50s) British rock music, Pat kept the audience wanting more. Whilst the start of the evening saw only a few odd locals singing and dancing to the show, towards the end of the evening the whole pub was on their feet singing along. In only his third ever live public performance, and following a performance in the early afternoon of the same day, a tired Pat came alive to entertain the crowd, only upsetting a few of his fans with the swearing in the John Lennon cover of "Working Class Hero."

The previous week at the Birdingbury Village Club saw a showing of the "Skyfall" movie, and the following week saw the arrival of a fish and chip van to keep the locals happy. Whilst most of the audience this week probably attended just for the free BBQ, they will no doubt return next year to see Pat keeping his loyal fans happy once more. The only downside to the night was not performing "On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at."

On the 9^th of June, nine members of the Electrochemistry group (Aleix, Barak, Jenny, Kim, Pat, Parky, Paul, Rob L. and Tania) battled it out to complete a 10 kilometre run from Warwick castle to Kenilworth castle. Group members have been taking part in this race for the past 5 years and it has become a much anticipated annual event. This year everyone trained hard in preparation for the big race and for many it paid off. Barak was taking part for the 1^st time but led the team, with Aleix substantially improving his time compared to last year. As seen in the photo below the rest of the team crossed the finish line (with a wide range of times!) to receive a medal from the organisers and enjoyed well-deserved home-made brownies (courtesy of Dallal). Well done y’all!

The Postgraduate Research Symposium 2013 took place on Wednesday 29^th of May in the Mathematics Institute. Three parallel sessions comprised by 3^rd year PhD student talks with 2^nd year postgrads presenting posters. In the Physical & Theoretical chemistry session five of the electrochemistry group members gave oral presentations on their work (Rehab Al Botros, Paul Kirkman, Robert Lazenby, Jon Newland, and Amelia Perry) and in the poster session Barak, Rob C., Binoy, and Sophie highlighted their research.

Congratulations to Jon for winning best session talk and Paul for being the runner up. But the success story didn’t stop there…Sophie Kinnear walked away with the 1^st prize for her poster with Barak Aaronson also the runner up winner with this being the group’s most successful representation in this annual symposium!

For more photos of the event (courtesy of Ken Westwood) click here.