Are We Nearly There Yet?

Julianne joined PA Consulting last year and is Global Head of Nuclear. She also sponsors the PA’s Women Networks and works with Women in Nuclear on their leadership programme.

She lives in Southport with her husband David also known as ‘Mr A’ and two children Oliver and Lucy who are at primary school age - and has been doing plenty of home schooling with them!

Julianne grew up in Levenshulme, Manchester and moved to Southport with her family to start a hotel business. She spent most of her youth living in a hotel where she learnt to work hard. She helped out with everything from pot cleaning, changing beds to serving at the bar.

Julianne loves all music from Country music to Oasis and Take That. She played in St Johns Silver brass band for 10 years playing the fluegelhorn. She has even played at Albert hall and has appeared on television!

Julianne attended Manchester University to study Environmental Science and Environmental Technology as she was fascinated by the world around us. During her time at University, she went overseas for 6 - 8months to New York to look at the pollution in places like Ontario.

She has also been an Interim at the Environment Agency and then went on to become a graduate at BNFL working with Springfield Nuclear Fuels.

Her next role at BNFL was working closely with the Chairman which meant she had to move to London.

She left BNFL during the break-up of the industry and went on to work at Nuvia for four years in the Business Development side of the company. In 2009 she took on the Statutory Board position.

Julianne then went on to work at Atkins as Business Development Director.

Mike lives in Preston with Wife Janet and his son and daughter who live nearby. He grew up in West Cumbria and lived in a small village Keekle in a single row of houses between Cleator Moor and Whitehaven.

He went to Whitehaven Grammar School and then went on to West Cumbria College in 1976.

Mike joined Calder Hall power station in 1975 when he was eighteen and spent much of his early career at Sellafield Ltd starting out as an Accountant.

He joined Westinghouse in 2004 as the Director of Springfields Fuels Ltd. In 2010 he became Managing Director of Nuclear Power Delivery UK then Vice President of Westinghouse UK Fuel and Managing and finally CEO of Westinghouse UK.

In 2013 he moved to The University of Sheffield as CEO of Nuclear AMRC. He was also a founder Board member of both the National Skills Academy for Nuclear and the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership.

He is now the chair of NIRAB and a member of the UK Nuclear Industry Council.

Reuben grew up in Hawarth, Yorkshire and then moved to Cumbria before starting secondary school in Millom. Reuben enjoyed taking part in competitive sports when he was younger and particularly enjoyed tennis. He was also heavily involved in the Air Cadets and after four years at the Air Cadets he became the highest ranked cadet in his squadron. Reuben’s goal up until he was sixteen was to be a pilot, however due to his eyesight deteriorating, he went down the Chemistry route instead after being inspired by his enthusiastic chemistry teachers.

Reuben went to St Andrew’s in Scotland to study Chemistry with Medicinal Chemistry. He really enjoyed his time at university where he worked part time at the betting shop, Ladbrokes and joined the local darts club.

After completing his masters degree, Reuben went on to work at British Sugar UK in the laboratory providing direct operational support. During his time at British Sugar UK, Reuben used the time to think about what he really wanted to do with his life and applied for a graduate scheme at Sellafield, where he ended up working in the Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing department as a Technical Specialist.  

Reuben then moved on to work for the National Nuclear Laboratory as a Plant Chemist. Within just weeks of starting at NNL, his chemistry responsibilities became split with public engagement research on nuclear topics, so he developed a broad range of experience in both the technical as well as social aspect of nuclear.

After working for NNL for five years, Reuben then decided to start a PhD at The University of Tokyo, Japan after deciding he wanted to gain more confidence in his technical ability and reasoning.

For more information visit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reuben-holmes-96748639/

Jack Gritt lives in Gloucestershire with her 2 dogs and is the founding member and former president of Women in Nuclear UK and still works as an advisor and is an executive board member of Women in Nuclear Global. She has 3 children who all live locally to her.

In her early years she grew up in Buckinghamshire. She started out her journey by starting an apprenticeship in hairdressing and then at 18 she started her own beauty therapy business for a couple of years. She soon realised this wasn’t for her and then went on to start her first position at Berkeley Nuclear PowerStation as a General Duty Assistant – quite the opposite to her other job! This gave her a real taste for the nuclear industry and realised this was for her.

She moved to working within the reactor, and after reading in to the nuclear industry, she realised she needed qualifications to work her way up. She then applied to do an HNC in Physics and Chemistry – the only female at Berkeley on site other than in the admin blocks. After that, she went on to study Mathematics, and is now a chartered Mathematician.

Working her way up the grades at Magnox, she continued to work there for seven years. She then went on to work at Jacobs for over nine years. In total, she has 36 years’ experience in the nuclear industry, holding a number of positions including Executive Management, Director of Operations, Programme and Project Management, Transformation and Change Management, Safety Case Management and Performance and Quality.

It was in the early years of her career that she formed a passion for encouraging people in the nuclear industry, especially women. She currently sits on the WiN Global Executive Board, is the UK representative on the WiN Global Board as well as retaining a role within WiN UK in a Non-Executive Director capacity. Through these roles Jack believes she can continue to build a future for the nuclear industry and create an environment where women can thrive in this exciting sector which offers endless opportunities. 

Jack has championed women in the industry throughout her career, as well as working in her local community as a Councillor and School Governor. She has always had a keen focus on helping women to manage their work/ family balance, remain in employment whilst raising a family and to have the confidence to consider transferrable skills to explore new opportunities. This lifelong passion led her to becoming a founding member of WiN UK and is what continues to drive her commitment today.

For more information visit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-gritt-49962a2b/

Clare Barlow lives in Preston with her husband Warren and daughter Hannah and is the HR Director and Board Member at the National Nuclear Laboratory.

Clare grew up in Liverpool and really enjoyed school. She loved maths and went on to do maths A level. After leaving school, Clare decided against going to university and went on to work at CBS Batteries as an Accountancy Trainee where she made the most of all the opportunities that came her way.

Clare then went back to study and get her degree in Business whilst balancing working at the same time. After moving around a few companies, in 1990 Clare started working for Kawneer where she eventually became Head of HR.

After taking a step-down to learn more about the business side of her job, she had the opportunity to travel to many different countries and throughout these jobs, Clare had a mentor which she valued greatly, and she felt she learnt a great deal through this period.  Clare went on to have jobs in British Airways and BAE Systems where she was HR Director for almost ten years.

To find out more about Clare visit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clarembarlow/

Andrew Sherry is Special Advisor UK's National Nuclear Laboratory and Research Professor at The University of Manchester. He lives in Manchester with his wife Sue and has two grown up daughters.

Andrew grew up in South East London and went to school at Dulwich College. He really loved sports and music and wasn’t particularly academic during his time at school. After not getting the A level results he’d hoped for, Andrew was offered a place through clearing at The University of Manchester to study Metallurgy.

Andrew really enjoyed his time at university and jumped at the chance when he was offered to do a PhD which he did on Single Crystal Superalloys. After completing his PhD, Andrew went on to work at UK Atomic Energy Authority for seventeen years and within his time at UKAEA Andrew began a Royal Society Industry Fellowship with the University of Manchester enabling him to do part time research whilst working for five years.

This then led Andrew back into academia. Andrew became the Director at Dalton Nuclear Institute. It was here that Andrew was working on significant projects that impacted the whole country and he found the work very rewarding. Andrew then went on to work at National Nuclear Laboratory as a Chief Scientist.

For more information visit: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ahsherry

Nassia Tzelepi was fascinated by science from a young age growing up in Greece.  It led her to read Molecular and Laser Physics at the University in Crete.  Her career journey took her from 40°C heat in Greece to horizontal rain in West Cumbria to work in the UK nuclear industry.

Nassia talks about discovering her purpose and her inner desire see the positive impact of science in the real world; on energy and the environment. As a materials expert, Nassia shares her passion to contribute to a greater good, to something that is useful; the safe operation of nuclear reactors providing zero carbon power in the UK.

Nassia is a Laboratory Fellow at the National Nuclear Laboratory. For more information visit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nassia-tzelepi-7a3aa132/

Professor Gerry Thomas is Director of the Chernobyl Tissue Bank and Professor of Molecular Pathology at Imperial College London. She has an experienced career in research, including becoming a Research Associate at the Department of Pathology in the University of Wales, College of Medicine and then became an MRC Postdoctoral Scientist at the University of Wales after completing her PhD.

Gerry grew up in Rugby and Leicestershire and now lives in Buckinghamshire with her husband Peter, who she met on her first day at University and two Jack Russel’s.

To begin with, Gerry did her BSci (Hons) in Pharmacology at the University of Bath in 1978. She then went on to become a Research Associate at the Department of Pathology in the University of Wales College of Medicine and completed a PhD in clonality of thyroid-tumours.

After her PhD Gerry went on to do more research as an MRC Postdoctoral Scientist at the University of Wales.

After her post-doctorate, she adopted the role of Research Associate, and then Senior Research associate.

In 2002, Gerry moved to Cambridge and then began lecturing at Swansea University. She then became the Scientific Director of Wales Cancer bank and on top of this, she also became a Clinical Director for the West London Genome Medicine Centre.

Gerry was a designated individual for the Imperial College Human Tissue License, this was where she featured on Sky News to talk about the Fukushima disaster. She then went out to Japan many times to give her advice.

Gerry is now part retired, but is still the Director of the Chernobyl Tissue bank.

For more information visit: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/geraldine.thomas

Dame Sue Ion, is an independent expert and advisor on nuclear power.

Sue initially started life in Carlisle before moving to Preston at the age of eight.  Sue went to  Penwortham Girls Grammar School where she enjoyed the science subjects and learnt things that weren’t in the syllabus in the science club. Her chemistry teacher introduced her to materials science, a mixture of physics and chemistry which explained while materials failed. Following this inspiration, it encouraged Sue to go to Imperial College, in London to study Materials Science.

Sue found Imperial College a very different environment from an all-girls school to a mainly male environment and from being the top of a class to be with other very clever people. Sue stayed on to do a PhD. as she’d had a very supportive supervisor and knew all the technicians so realised this would help her complete her studies within three years.

After university Sue went on to work for BNFL as a Technical Officer in the chemical engineering at Springfields. From here, Sue went to Sizewell B in the sales and marketing department to bid for fuel commercially before moving back to Springfields as their Head of Research and Development. In 1992, Sue was successful in being promoted to Executive Director of Technology. Sue is now a high-profile, independent advisor in nuclear providing expert advice.  

Sue is a passionate advocate of women in science and engineering. She is strong supporter of increasing diversity of the nuclear workforce featured in the Nuclear Industry Strategy.

Robert is the Senior Strategic and Economic Advisor for the Nuclear Innovation Research office (NIRO) within the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

Robert was born in Vancouver, Canada and now lives in Cumbria and is a qualified Sub-Aqua Ocean Diver and enjoys walking and cycling in his free time as well as volunteering.

Robert enjoyed school and was always inquisitive, wanting to learn more, with a why and more mindset.

He was inspired from the age of 14 by URENCO giving a talk at school on atoms, which made him decide to take the chemistry route in to nuclear.

He studied at chemistry, maths and physics at A-Level before studying for a BSc (Hons) in Chemistry with Analytical Chemistry at Loughborough University.

Robert’s first experience of industry was during a placement year where he worked at Croft Engineering Services.

After university he started with NNL on the graduate programme in Chemical and Process Modelling Team before becoming a deputy technical lead Post Irradiation Examination. From here, Robert was seconded to NDA in 2019 to be a Technical Assistant to the NDA group Strategy and Technology Director, Adrian Simper. Robert currently works for NIRO.

Robert has won the NNL IMPACT award for social responsibility and the YGN Young Excellence Prize.

For more information visit: Robert Alford | LinkedIn