Miss Ellen Mwenesongole, a PhD student from our Department of Life Sciences in Forensic Science and Chemistry, has recently won a prestigious Pro-Vice Chancellors Award for Outstanding Innovative Research at a conference. The conference was held at the University of Salford (Salford Postgraduate Annual Research Conference, SPARC) and organised for young researchers to disseminate their work.

Ellen is in her second year of her PhD and is supervised by Dr Lata Gautam and Dr Sarah Hall and her talk based on her research; "Estimating Community Drug Usage Patterns by the Analysis of Waste Water", was very well accepted by all the delegates and organisers at the conference. The presentation was recognised further by securing the Pro-Vice Chancellors Award for Outstanding Innovative Research, with Ellen receiving a certificate and cash prize.

The SPARC conference was attended by more than 180 delegates from the UK, including postgraduate students from more than 24 different UK universities. The conference was held for two days and the presentations were grouped into several subject areas. Although in its eleventh year, this was the first time awards were handed out for best presentations in all of the different categories. Ellen was not the only student who attended the conference from Anglia Ruskin University. Three other students presented posters or papers, resulting in another successful conference prizewinner, Mr Simon Bell, a post graduate student who was awarded the Best Presentation for Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.

Dr Lata Gautam said: "I am very pleased with Ellen's achievement. She has progressed well in her PhD. This is not only her success, but also recognition of the excellent quality of the Forensic science research that we do in our department and the university." Dr Sarah Hall also said "This is another great accomplishment for Forensic science and particularly rewarding for Ellen, with strong competition from other contributors in her research area including Herriot-Watt University, Kings College London, and Sheffield University. It is also additional acknowledgment of the interesting and first-class research we are carrying out and builds on the success of last year's four conference prizes in Forensic science".