Research meeting on clay minerals in the natural and built environment

On 17 May, the research meeting on Clay minerals in the natural and built environment: formation, chemistry & applications took place at Newcastle University’s USB Building. The meeting was jointly organised by the Clay Minerals Group of the Mineralogical Society and the Environmental Chemistry Group of the Royal Society of Chemistry. The organising team were Anke and Laura Newsome (University of Exeter).

The meeting attracted 50 registered participants from academia, industry, and government and featured 11 oral presentations and 8 posters. The two keynote speakers, Prof Josef Breu (University of Bayreuth) and Prof Susan Stipp (Danish Technical University), delivered inspiring and excellent overviews of the research in their fields, which were complemented by an industrial perspective given by the invited speakers David Owen and an introduction into synchrotron-based X-ray spectroscopy by Bhoopesh Mishra (invited speaker). Both coffee and lunch breaks as well as the informal drinks after the meeting gave ample opportunity for networking in a relaxed atmosphere.  The Clay Minerals Group also awarded student prices for Best Oral Presentation (Panagiota Adamou, Newcastle University) and for Best Poster Presentation (Jeffrey Paulo Perez, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences).

Impression of the research meeting
Jeffrey Paulo Perez from GFZ being awarded the Best Poster prize
Panagiota Adamou from Newcastle University being awarded the Best Oral Presentation prize