On the 12 December 2019 we celebrated the end of a successful year with our Christmas Lecture, this time hosted at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London. Prof. Stephen Curry discussed why he thinks that opening up science, engineering, technology and medicine to all people is the only way to ensure that these disciplines operate at their most productive and target their efforts at the world’s most pressing problems. His enlightening talk stirred nice discussions amongst participants.

The event closed with an awards ceremony for our first Short Paper Competition, theme: "Why I became a Chemical Engineer". Adam Barnes and Pablo García-Triñanes, two of the jury panel members, joined us in proclaiming Ravi Shankar as the winner of the 1^st edition with the work called ‘ChemEng and a cup of coffee: what could be better?’. Ravi was awarded a £50 prize and his article will be published in the next edition of the IChemE LSEC Newsletter.

We would like to thank the Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London for their kind sponsorship and for hosting us. We’d also like to acknowledge Sara West (Communications Officer at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London) for her precious help with the event organisation and advertising.