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.
PTNR Industrial Lecture 2025
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!
HAWTT Team wins NDA Collaboration Award
Following on from the recent NDA supply chain event, we are proud to share that the Higher Activity Waste Thermal Treatment Team (HAWTT) were announced as the winners of the award for 'best example of delivering excellence through collaboration'! Cerberus Nuclear alongside NTS and NWS colleagues have been providing criticality expertise to the programme as part of a wider team composed of RED Engineering, Sellafield Ltd, Cavendish Nuclear, Tetronics, NNL and AtkinsRéalis.
Our congratulations to everyone on the project whose hard work has been recognised in this achievement!
We would like to recognise Sarah, Dan and Tom for their ongoing support on this project for Cerberus Nuclear (with extra thanks for Tom for kindly taking time away from a busy and successful supply chain event to represent Cerberus Nuclear at the receipt of the award).
Cerberus Nuclear at the 55th Shielding Forum Meeting
Earlier this week, Cerberus Nuclear was delighted to once again participate in the 55th Shielding Forum Meeting, hosted by Nuclear Transport Solutions at Birchwood Park, Warrington. This meeting is an important event in the calendar for radiation shielding professionals, offering a chance to learn about recent advancements in the field, share knowledge, and network with others.
As an active contributor to the forum, Cerberus played a key role throughout the day with John Billingsley delivering a presentation on the latest developments of Cyclone Sage – a state-of-the-art AI tool integrated with Cyclone, currently being developed in collaboration with Orthrus Software.
Sage is designed to revolutionize radiation transport simulations, offering the ability to generate full, accurate, and hallucination-free MCNP input decks from natural language prompts. This functionality is a game-changer for Monte Carlo simulations, simplifying workflows and significantly reducing errors in calculations. For new shielding analysts, Sage accelerates their training by helping them familiarize themselves with MCNP syntax and perform error-free calculations quickly. For seasoned practitioners, it will help significantly speed up the production of complex MCNP inputs.
We were thrilled to receive very positive feedback on Sage from attendees throughout the day, with many eager to become early-release testers and explore its capabilities firsthand. It was clear to us that the nuclear sector recognizes the potential of a tool like Sage to enhance the efficiency and accuracy of shielding calculations.
Throughout the day, we also saw a variety of other insightful presentations showcasing innovative approaches and advancements in shielding methods and technologies. A huge thank you to Anton Murfin (UKNNL) and the committee for hosting another excellent TSF event.
If you would like to learn more about Cyclone, check out Orthrus Software’s website, and look out for exciting updates on Sage on our website and LinkedIn. If you are interested in becoming an early-release tester of Cyclone Sage, please get in touch via support@orthrussoftware.com.
