Haleema recently attended the Early Careers Criticality Safety Network (ECSN) site tour of Dounreay in Scotland.
The trip included presentations about Criticality at Dounreay NRS and the history of the Dounreay Site, visits to the Waste Receipt Assay & Characterisation Super Compaction Facility, the iconic globe housing the Dounreay Fast Reactor and the attached Breeder Fuel Removal Facility. The site tour gave a real appreciation for the scale of work involved with nuclear decommissioning, with the visit showing the importance of collaboration across the nuclear sector in addressing challenges of legacy sites.
Haleema’s trip also included a road trip from the north of England to the highlands and back, she made the most of this on her return by starting at the most northern point of the mainland and then travelling down through the dramatic Scottish Highlands visiting Loch Ness (no sightings unfortunately) and Urquhart Castle, then making a stop amongst the beautiful landscapes of Glencoe and Loch Lomond before a stop in vibrant Glasgow.
Meet our new Security Controllers!
Nathan and Sarah attended the DISA training course on the Role of the Facility Security Controller. The course covered security threats, physical security, document handling and control, contracts, IT security, communications security and personnel vetting, giving an overview of government security policy and how this is applied across defence and civil industries. As security controllers, Nathan and Sarah will be supporting security matters across all of Cerberus’ work alongside their usual roles as shielding and criticality consultants.
Particular highlights of the course were an asset handling task (which included inflatable toy “assets” and some improvised double bagging arrangements with a Cerberus Nuclear tote bag and a hastily emptied satchel) and an impromptu tour of medieval flags in nearby Tewkesbury town centre. Tewkesbury was the site of one of the (many) decisive battles of the Wars of the Roses in 1471 and to celebrate this heritage the Tewkesbury Battlefield Society organises summer long displays of coats of arms from the families associated with the battle. This also meant Sarah stopped to take photos approximately every five metres.
Side note: Cerberus Nuclear does not express any allegiance to either side in the Wars of the Roses, the flags are just cool. Staff may wish to brush up on their heraldic imagery should this make an appearance in one of Sarah’s future bizarre quiz rounds…
Cerberus Camping Do 2025
Earlier this month we had our annual Cerberus camping do! The backdrop for this year's festivities was the beautiful Conwy Valley in Wales... and a fairly large amount of rain.
The weather wasn't too bad actually, other than on the Friday evening when we were putting up all of our tents. You can see the before and after of the construction of our mini gazebo below for context. However, we will not be telling you how much time had passed between these two photos so those involved can keep their dignity intact.
We still managed to have a very successful barbecue despite the rain, which was much needed after putting up all of our tents in the less than ideal conditions. The campsite itself was lovely and we'd definitely recommend the Conwy Valley Barn to anyone looking to camp in the area!
On the Saturday, a large contingent of us ventured to the Sblash Aqua park, which was a fantastic time! You can probably see from the pictures and videos below that the adults probably had an even better time than the kids! It was a great experience that we'd definitely recommend for those of all ages. We hope you get at least an idea of how much fun it was from the photos and videos here!
After all of the excitement, we played some games back at the camp site and had some hard earned rest. Here's a photo of Dan's dog Seven, providing a great representation of how we all felt after the water activities, and doing a great impression of Dan who had snuck off for a nap in his tent at the time.
We finished off the day with a lovely meal in Conwy. Some more members of the team, who weren't so keen on camping, joined us for the evening, which was a nice treat. It was a lovely way to end off a very successful camping trip. We look forward to doing this all again next year and sharing our experience of wherever we end up going!
New Starter: Elliot Hughes
We are delighted to welcome Elliot Hughes to the Cerberus Nuclear team!
Elliot has joined us after over four years working in consultancy in the nuclear industry. He began his career working on projects to support EDF UK stations maintain and optimise their systems. Desiring to put his physics degree to use he moved internally with his previous employer where he gained experience in transient analysis, fault studies, and the MONK criticality code – with which he authored a criticality safety assessment for the transport of spent nuclear fuel.
Elliot is looking forward to deepening his criticality experience and developing with Cerberus Nuclear. Welcome to the team Elliot!
Cerberus Attend SRP Annual Conference 2025
Cerberus Nuclear had a fantastic time attending the Society for Radiological Protection (SRP) Annual Conference 2025! The event was hosted over three days at Connexin Live, Hull and was a great success!
This was our first year exhibiting at the event so we brought reinforcements! Andrew, Haleema, Hannah, Sam, and Zac all attended the event so we had plenty of opportunities to attend all of the presentations we wanted to while still having enough people to man our stand.
The exhibition space was a great opportunity to demo Cyclone and CARTA! Providing attendees with a hands on experience of our MCNP visualisation suite and our criticality safety training tools.
There were some great presentations at this years conference, including a short but sweet affiliated organisation presentation from Zac on behalf of the company! It was especially rewarding to hear praise about work Cerberus has done from the perspective of our clients in various presentations across the conference.
The highlight of the SRP Annual Conference 2025 was the annual dinner. It was an amazing opportunity to celebrate all of the work done across the SRP and to build excitement for the 7th European IRPA Congress in Liverpool next year!
In celebration of the 7th European IRPA Congress in Liverpool, the SRP ran a competition for the best affiliate organisation link to Liverpool, which we won!
Our connection to Liverpool is the Jacob Billington Trust (JBT), a charity based in Merseyside for which one of our shielding assessors acts as the treasurer. Last year, two members of our team completed a charity bike ride, where they pedalled over 200 miles from Southport to Hornsea to raise money for the JBT!
A big thank you goes out to the organisers of the SRP Annual Conference 2025! It was an amazing time and we can't wait to attend more SRP events in the future!
Workshop on the Role of Innovation in the Nuclear Back-End
Cerberus Nuclear had the opportunity to attend the Workshop on the Role of Innovation in the Nuclear Back-End, jointly organised by the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) and Sellafield Ltd. Thomas Scone and Tom Page sat in on the various talks that ranged from the current accomplishments of robotics within nuclear environments around the world to the emerging potential of artificial intelligence to support various ongoing decommissioning challenges.
With representatives from across Europe and further afield, including China, South Korea, Canada and the US, the workshop showed the benefits of learning from the global nuclear industry. Looking forwards, Cerberus Nuclear is keen to keep an eye on further innovative work in different countries and will continue to seek new opportunities for our own expertise and technologies to find use wherever it may be best used.
John Billingsley Elected Secretary of The Shielding Forum
Cerberus Nuclear has been a regular participant in The Shielding Forum (TSF), which brings together radiation shielding professionals from the UK and internationally to share ideas, discuss developments, and support best practice in the field.
TSF plays a key role in promoting good practice in radiation shielding and supporting the UK’s continued development as a centre of excellence in radiation protection. It provides a platform for discussing shielding-related matters, shaping industry best practices, and encouraging collaboration across organisations. TSF also helps address regulatory developments collectively, promotes consistent shielding design approaches, and supports the next generation of professionals through training, engagement, and knowledge sharing.
Cerberus Nuclear has been actively involved in TSF for several years. At recent meetings, we have presented work on the development of Cyclone Sage, a cutting-edge AI assistant for generating MCNP input files; advancements in Cyclone, developed in collaboration with Orthrus Software; as well as development work into the accurate modelling of criticality sources for a variety of applications.
At the most recent TSF meeting, members voted to elect a new committee, and we’re pleased to share that John Billingsley, from our radiation shielding team, was elected as the new Secretary. He will be working alongside Liz Holland as Chair, Joe Scott as Vice Chair, and Craig Williams as Treasurer. We’re proud to see John taking on this role and look forward to continuing our support for TSF and its work within the shielding community.
OpenMC Internal Training
Last week, John Billingsley from our Radiation Shielding team ran a full-day internal training session on OpenMC - a Monte Carlo particle transport code used for simulating neutron and photon transport.
OpenMC is a community-developed, open-source code that has gained popularity for its flexibility, active development, and integration with Python. It is widely adopted in the fusion energy sector, where its ability to perform high-fidelity simulations makes it a valuable tool for design and analysis. Increasingly, OpenMC is also being adopted in other areas of the nuclear industry as interest in modern, open-source tools continues to grow.
The training was well attended by members of both the shielding and criticality teams and was structured as a mix of short lectures and hands-on exercises. John introduced the main concepts of building models with OpenMC, including using its Python API to define geometries and materials, set up source terms, and run transport simulations. Attendees had the chance to follow along with practical examples and try building their own models themselves throughout the day.
The informal workshop format encouraged plenty of discussion, and it was a great opportunity for colleagues to explore how OpenMC might be applied in future projects. It was also a valuable chance for Cerberus to build upon our existing experience and expand our capabilities in the use of modern Monte Carlo transport codes.
Thanks to John for putting together such an informative and engaging session and for helping more of the team get familiar with OpenMC.
OSSFE Conference 2025
Last week, our shielding consultant, John Billingsley, had the opportunity to attend the Open Source Software for Fusion Energy (OSSFE) Conference – a first-of-its-kind event dedicated to advancing the development of open-source tools within the fusion energy community. The conference brought together researchers, developers, and enthusiasts from around the world to share exciting open source developments designed to accelerate progress in one of the most complex scientific challenges of all time.
Throughout the day, there was a wide range of engaging sessions and discussions, including technical talks, poster presentations, software demos, Q&A panel sessions, and informal meetups. Researchers presented on a broad range of topics including plasma physics, neutronics, tritium transport, and materials science, and showcased new tools in practical software tutorials.
The event was hosted through Gather in fully customized virtual platform which had been designed to replicate a real-world conference space. This wasn’t something we’d used before and was an interesting new environment to explore. You could navigate the space just like a real conference – dropping into rooms where presentations where happening or using proximity chat to strike up conversations with other attendees as you “walked” past. It brought a surprisingly authentic feel to an online event.
A huge thank you to the organising committee - Rémi Delaporte-Mathurin, James Dark, Jonathan Shimwell, Nick Murphy, Patrick Shriwise, Samuele Meschini, Ethan Peterson, and Julien Hillairet – for putting together such a well-organised and engaging event. We are looking forward to attending again in 2026.
Cerberus Nuclear returned to the University of Birmingham to deliver an industrial lecture for the Physics and Technology of Nuclear Reactors (PTNR) masters course. Katrina, Toby, and Zac are all alumni of the PTNR course and were excited to return to campus for this presentation.
Katrina opened the presentation, introducing the students to Cerberus Nuclear and the work we do in radiation shielding, criticality safety, as well as nuclear characterisation and innovation.
Zac then discussed radiation shielding in more detail, talking to the students about the different areas of the shielding design process, the importance of these areas, and examples of how an assessment is carried out for each of these areas. The radiation shielding section of the presentation was capped off with a discussion of shielding verification techniques.
Toby delivered the criticality safety section of the lecture, engaging the students with quickfire questions about the factors affecting criticality. He also discussed his experience working as a criticality safety assessor, and introduced the students to criticality safety training resources including CARTA, Cerberus Nuclear's VR criticality training tool.
Katrina closed the presentation with a discussion of career opportunities in the nuclear industry, shining a spotlight on the Working Party on Criticality (WPC) and The Shielding Forum (TSF). It was a fantastic day and was great to catch up with Professor Paul Norman and meet the new cohort of PTNR students.
We would like to thank Paul for inviting us back and wish the current PTNR cohort the best of luck in the future!
