|
“ Joining the Nuclear Institute has become very useful as a recognised institution for professional excellence. ”
Current Employer: Nuclear Restoration Services (NRS)
|
|
I’m currently the Director of Capability at NIRO (Nuclear Innovation and Research Office) and a senior advisor to the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero.
Route into nuclear
I was an ecotoxicologist doing work on Dove Soap with radiotracers. We basically built a sewage treatment facility in a basement and just ran experiments, seeing where the radiological traces ended up.
Then I went to work for the company that made the radio traces and did all the stack monitoring environmental work, and after that, I went contracting in the nuclear industry, worked on AGRs operationally for 5 years, then went into consultancy, mostly on the design of radioactive waste systems for new build plants (Wylfa Newydd, HPC and SMRs).
Professional Membership
It was relevant for the industry that I'm essentially in and staying in it became more relevant as time went on, to maintain those links across the wider industry. I started working on Hinkley Point C and needed to make contacts across the supply chain and talk a lot more about the supply chain. Joining the Nuclear Institute has become very useful as a recognised institution for professional excellence across government agencies and institutions in my current role at NRS.
Benefits of a Professional Membership
A major benefit is having access to a wider group of people and being able to talk to people outside the context that you would normally meet them in. For instance, you might be at an event and be able to speak to the regulator, where you are able to ask questions that you might not otherwise be able to ask in other contexts.
It also gives you an idea of what's happening in the wider industry and what other people are doing, which means you can link up, find out what each other is doing, see if their ideas are going to work or what they've deployed is going to work on your project.
It helps avoid repetition of work because we're actually talking to each other; it's a good way of breaking down silos.
The future
I will be involved in more strategy work within NRS (Magnox). We're taking on the UK AGR fleet Dounreay and other elements of the UK’s nuclear infrastructure, so integrating the new liabilities into strategy will be challenging.
|