NEWS

Maggie, Malvika and Anke represented the group at this year’s 75-year Jubilee Meeting of the Clay Minerals Group. The meeting took place on 25&26 May in the Natural History Museum in London. Malvika presented her first poster and Maggie delivered a great talk on the second day. Well done both!

In her role of Chair of the CMG, Anke welcomed the audience attending both in person and online. The line up of invited speakers included high profile academic and industry researchers and we also had the opportunity to interact with past CMG officers and the President and President-Elect of the Mineralogical Society.

It was a particular pleasure to meet Joe Stucki again, who serendipitously was travelling in Europe and thus made it to the meeting!

Well done Harry for defending your PhD thesis successfully today!

Cheers to you and your achievements over the past years, despite being locked out of the lab for several months curtesy to SARS-CoV-2 and doing the heavy lifting of writing exclusively in your home office.

Andy’s first field visit to Force Crag took place on 10 February. This reconnaissance mission was to familiarise Andy with his main field site. February weather though, so it can only get better!

Malvika Patial joined the Neumann research group as a PhD student today. In her SERDP/EPSRC-funded project, she will investigate the reductive and oxidative degradation of halogenated contaminants.

Welcome Malvika!

Yet again – the group’s Christmas get together on Zoom.

We celebrated the graduation of our Environmental Engineering MSc students – in person! What a treat; and thanks to all who travelled to Newcastle for this event.

Congratulations Dr Panagiota Adamou for your fantastic work and great achievement. It was wonderful to see you graduate in Newcastle colours today, even if a year belated. I wish you all the best for your future career! Do stay in touch.

Andrew (Andy) Oroke joined the Neumann research group as a PhD student in September 2021. In his IAPETUS2-funded project, he will investigate the removal mechanism(s) of Arsenic in compost-based passive treatment systems as a case studies for natural attenuation processes and to address the challenge of managing Arsenic-contaminated irrigation water.

Welcome Andy!

Anke used her holidays to catch up with ‘old’ friends and colleagues in Switzerland: Neumann group alumni Kath Rothwell (Postdoc in the Soil Chemistry group at ETH) and former Iowa colleague and student assistant Luiza Notini (also Postdoc in the Soil Chemistry group at ETH).

We are excited to see MSc students working in the lab again, after being restricted to desk-based projects last academic year. Of course, we keep them safe by following the appropriate hygiene protocols.