Alex Speakman, the research group's first PhD student, had his viva on Friday 11th November, and he passed with minor thesis corrections required.

The examiners were Dr Stewart Smith (internal) and Dr Veikko Linko (external, University of Tartu, Estonia). After the viva Alex's success was celebrated in the group office, which had been decorated in his honour. In the evening we celebrated with a group dinner.

The results of Alex's PhD research will be written up for publication soon, following on from our patent application and a conference presentation in Rome earlier in the year. He has achieved some remarkable things during his PhD.

Alex's PhD was funded by a studentship from the School of Engineering and his research was partially supported by funding from the Wellcome Trust.