Movember is one of the biggest charitable events that WEIG is involved in during the year. The event is designed to raise money and awareness for men's health charities (prostate, testicular and mental illness). Several members of the group grew moustaches for the month (Josh, Rob, Aleix, Binoy, Jon, Jesus, Roy, Ben, Tolik, Josh L) as well as other group members contributing to a cake sale for donations. Congratulations to everyone involved! A massive total of £741 has been raised, which is a great achievement.

Rob, Jesus, Binoy, Josh dyed their moustaches pink in order to raise more money for the cause! Good job chaps!

Prof. Sam Kounaves from Tufts University, USA visited the department on 24th November to talk about his work with NASA and the Phoenix Mars mission. The talk was titled: “The New Surface Chemistry of Mars: Implications for Habitability and Organics”​.

The talk presented the results of the in-situ martian soil analyses by the electrochemically-based Wet Chem Lab (WCL) on the Phoenix lander and the GC-MS instruments on the Curiosity rover. This was inspiring as Kounaves showed the use of electrochemistry as a tool for getting important information from other planets.

Well done to both Jon Newland and Rob Lazenby for passing their PhD vivas! Both will now be staying on as postdocs within the group.

Congratulations to Zoë Ayres for winning the "Early Career Researcher Prize" at WWEM 2014. The aim of the SWIG Early Career Researcher Prize for Sensing the Water Environment is to raise awareness of technological development and novel applications related to water measurements and thereby promote innovation in sensor research and commercial application. The competition is run every two years and is open to all ‘early career researchers’ within the first 4 years of employment within their area of expertise.

The national competition required the submission of a poster summarising PhD research and 3 entries were selected for the finals. The 3 finalists then had to give a talk on their research which was judged by a panel of industry professionals. Zoë, who's research is sponsored by Element Six, was awarded with first prize for her research on Electrochemical X-ray Fluorescence, with second prize going to Gary Black of Cranfield University for his work on "Developmnent of a biological early warning system: In-sewer on-line toxicity detection", and third prize going to Brendan Heery from Dublin University for his work on "Metabolism based fluorescence assay and portable device for E.coli quantification in recreational waters".

Congratulations to Jenny Webb and Rob Channon for running the Birmingham half marathon in support of BUPA.