Engineering the nuclear future - learning and innovation in the nuclear industry

Tim Parkes has over 20 years’ experience in the civil nuclear industry and has worked on all stages of the nuclear lifecycle, including new build, operating reactors, fuel manufacture, reprocessing and decommissioning.

His background is in Control and Instrumentation and he is a Chartered member of the IET. Tim joined ONR in 2017 as a C&I specialist inspector.

He is currently Head of Safety Regulation for Advanced Nuclear Technologies and is leading ONR’s generic design assessment of the Holtec SMR-300.

Laura has worked in the Nuclear industry and Sellafield Ltd for nearly 23 years, joining as a Graduate to the then BNFL Engineering and progressing to her current role as Chief EC&I Engineer. 

As the Chief Electrical Engineer for the CE&I design community for Sellafield Ltd,  she is accountable for leading the CE&I design community, providing expect direction and guidance. Including the development of the engineers and the community. The assurance of safe, legally compliant and fit for purpose design solutions that meet functional and business requirements.

This community consists of around 650 staff engineers with around a further 2000 CE&I engineers working within our supply chain, the development of these engineers is critical to the success of our engineering design quality output.

Dave Pearson is Chief Instrumentation & Control Engineer for Hinkley Point C. With 24 years’ experience in the Nuclear Industry, he has successfully led design, implementation and commissioning of some of the UK nuclear fleet’s largest recent control system modernisation and refurbishment projects.

A Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the IET he has presented at, and continues to work working with, the International Atomic Energy Authority on key I&C topics and guidance.

Vince spent the first twenty years of their career as a control and instrumentation engineer, the first half for the MoD in the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory before moving to Amec and its successors up to Amentum in the UK nuclear sector. During that period they worked on a variety of projects of all scales across maintaining the existing fleet of AGR reactors, various new build and SMR projects as well as naval defence; eventually settling on being a specialist in assessing equipment manufacturers on their compliance to design and production methodology standards.

This experience of both working within a variety of project lifecycles as well as externally assessing others led to acquiring suitable knowledge and experience that allowed them to take on the current role of Systems Engineering and Requirements Lead for the PPP partnership delivering major capital projects for Sellafield Limited; where they endeavour to draw on the best practice witnessed in the previous decades and instil it as the business as usual on PPP projects.   

Michael is a Managing Director at LucidCatalyst, based in London. Previously, he was Managing Director of two reactor vendors developing Gen IV reactors. He has held senior roles and represented the UK government on Advanced Nuclear Technologies (ANT) for both SMR and AMR at the International Atomic Energy Agency. As Account Director for the UK’s National Nuclear Laboratory, he has led programmes on Gen III+ and Gen IV reactors and chaired the UK Molten Salt Technology Platform and has a current position on the board of Midlands Nuclear.

He has provided written and oral evidence to the Science and Technology Select Committee for delivering nuclear, been an expert speaker at the All Party Parliamentary Group for both Nuclear and APPG SMR, worked closely with HM Treasury and DESNZ on developing UK policy for nuclear and been an expert for public perception development for modular reactors in the UK.

He has worked with academia to develop capabilities for advanced nuclear technologies and is a fellow at the University of Liverpool on the Zero Power reactor programme. He has developed engineering solutions and project managed major projects such as Chernobyl NSC, ITER Fusion programme, Magnox decommissioning and projects on the existing fleet of UK AGR reactors and PWR reactor at Sizewell B.

Having started his career in automotive at Jaguar Landrover volume production vehicles, his most recent focus has been on volume production of advanced modular reactors and the development of clean, net zero solutions

Chris has over 30 years’ experience spanning the nuclear, pharmaceutical, chemical, refining and power generation sectors in both industrial and publicly funded research settings. During this period Chris has led and grown significant multi-disciplinary teams in the delivery of new projects, programmes, and services.  

Chris joined UKAEA 2003 and was the founder of the Central Engineering Department and Authority Chief Engineer (2013-2019). He is a member of the EUROFusion PPP&T (DEMO) Technical Advisory Group and a contributing author to the EU Research Roadmap to the realisation of Fusion Energy: https://www.euro-fusion.org/eurofusion/roadmap/ 

Chris is married and has three children. He grew up on the coast in Devon and enjoys going surfing with his family whenever he can.  

Dr Richard Piggin has an Engineering Doctorate (EngD) from the University of Warwick, having undertaken industrial automation and safety-related networking research. This was followed by leading an international technology association developing and promoting safety-related technology. He subsequently joined a leading automation vendor to assist partnering organisations to integrate networking technology into their products. With the increased demand for convergence, Richard moved to the networks and security consulting business, developing their European services.  

Richard recently joined ONR to undertake a cyber security inspection role. Prior to joining ONR, he focused on critical infrastructure cyber security consultancy with Atkins and most recently Accenture. Whilst at Accenture Richard collaborated with ONR to develop and deliver cyber security board briefings. The ONR Accenture partnership on cyber security leadership and governance produced several publications and was shortlisted as finalists at two security awards. Richard continues to raise awareness of critical infrastructure security and safety, having published over 100 papers. He was a co-instigator and contributor to the IET Code of Practice for Security and Safety. 

Gareth has worked in cyber security, data privacy and records management for over 25 years, much of this in the financial services sector. He has held a number of leadership positions with large UK and global banks, most recently as the MD for cyber security policy, governance and risk.

His work has included engagement with regulators across the world and since retiring from the financial services sector in 2020 he has taken up a role with the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) where he has been inspecting arrangements for leadership and management of cyber risk.

Barrie Cran has spent over 35 years in the nuclear industry.  His early career was in the Royal Navy operating and managing reactor plants in Valiant and Swiftsure class submarines.  He also operated short facilities and was the Deputy Superintendent of the MoD’s reactor prototype establishment, Vulcan NRTE, at Dounreay overseeing the commissioning of the plant for the Vanguard and Astute Classes. Other roles included being a Principal Inspector for the Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator focussing on regulating the submarine plant and berths around the UK and world that were outside the naval bases.

Since leaving the RN in 2010, Barrie had a short stint as a contractor with EDF Nuclear Generation before spending 8 years with Horizon where he established the Independent Assurance, Learning and Regulatory Affairs function proving an integrated 3rd Line of Defence.  Following suspension of the Horizon Project, he spent nearly 5 years as the Assurance Director of  Dounreay covering  wide range of activities and major transitions from the Parent Body Organisation into the NDA and then joining with Magnox to form Nuclear Restoration Services.

Since January 2024, Barrie has been seconded into GBN covering a range of topics including Technical Assurance, Requirements Management, supporting Technology Provider Selection and Overseeing the sites and land acquired by GBN.

Barrie is a CEng, MIMechE, and acts as a mentor to young engineers.