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.

Hearty congratulations to Tahani and Kate for successfully defending their PhD thesis. They both emerged from their vivas with minor corrections - and, together with the group, they celebrated their distinguished accomplishments.

Tahani Bawazeer has now returned back to her home country, Saudi Arabia, as an Associate Professor at Umm Al-Qura University and Kate Meadows is going on to study Medicine at Cambridge University.

The group took part at the annual MEG meeting held in the School of Chemistry, University of Nottingham on the 17^th of April. 37 members of the group were there and four of our 2^nd & 3^rd year PhD students gave oral presentations on their work:

• Rob Lazenby on ‘New Developments in Intermittent Contact-Scanning Electrochemical Microscopy: Nanoscale Imaging and Hopping Mode'
• Paul Kirkman on ‘Localised diazonium modification of sp2 carbon surfaces through high-resolution electrochemistry’
• Changhui Chen on ‘Pseudo-single crystal electrochemistry on polycrystalline electrodes: Visualizing single grain activity for Fe^2+/3+ and oxygen reduction reaction’
• Jon Newland on ‘Investigation of Molecular Partitioning Between Oil Droplets and Aqueous Solution using Double Potential Step Chronoamperometry’

Paul was a well deserved runner up and all our group's talks were of a high standard - so well done to all four presenters. After the meeting the group went on a 'Trip to Jerusalem'…England’s oldest Inn located at the foot of Nottingham castle for a great meal and the finest real ales in town.

A special thanks to Rob Lazenby who organised the trip to Nottingham, and to Max Joseph and Alexander 'Parky' Parker, our very own mini bus drivers.

The electrochemistry group celebrated one more successful viva! Kim McKelvey who is originally from New Zealand deserves many congratulations or whakamihi (as the indigenous NZ people would say). Kim was part of the MOAC Doctoral Training Centre and is now a PDRA in the group. His thesis was focused on the development of electrochemical imaging techniques for biophysical applications. Kim’s PhD viva with Prof David Klenerman (University of Cambridge) and Vas Stavros (Warwick) was completed in the record time of approximately 1 hour and 15 min.

So very well done Kim and we hope you enjoy the NZ vs. Australia cricket match for the ICC Champions trophy.