YGN Core Committee (2013)

The YGN Committee is made up as follows (click below to email them directly):

Name Role(s) Email Directly
Monica Mwanje Chair email
Alan Ruiz Previous Chair email
Leanne Hodgson Vice Chair email
Amy Bird Vice Chair email
Chris Greenless Treasurer email
Alys Gardner Secretary email
Simon Ramzi Webmaster email
Aujas Mistry Event Leader email
Chris Holland Event Leader email
Nathan Paterson Event Leader email
Hannah Grimsley Event Leader email
Graham Simpson Event Leader email

Profiles

Monica Mwanje - 2013 Chair

Monica is a Chartered Chemical Engineer who has been working in the nuclear industry since graduating from university in 2003. Monica joined DBD Limited in July 2010. Within her role at DBD Limited Monica combines technical work with business development activities.

Monica has worked previously for Sellafield Ltd, Jacobs and Atkins gaining experience in a range of decommissioning and defence projects.

Monica first began volunteering for the YGN in 2005 and joined the YGN committee in 2007. In her time with the YGN Monica has helped to launch and organise a number of events. In 2011 Monica took on the role of commercial officer for the YGN committee, lead the organisation of the first YGN North West networking event and exhibition and the inaugural Rough Guide to Nuclear New Build.

In 2012 Monica took on the role of vice-chair and continued her role as commercial officer. Monica also organised the 2012 YGN North West networking event and exhibition and lead the organisation of the 2012 YGN Annual Dinner and Day Seminar.

In 2013 Monica takes on the role of Chair. Monica will continue her role as commercial officer. Alongside this Monica is leading organisation of the Legal & Commercial Seminar and will be part of the team organising the 2013 YGN Annual Dinner and Day Seminar.

Monica is also a Science and Engineering Ambassador, and she goes to schools/colleges to talk about engineering and her work in the nuclear industry.

   
Alan Ruiz - 2013 Previous Chair

Alan has worked in the nuclear industry for over 14 years.  He started his career at Dounreay as a safety engineer. He graduated with a degree in chemical engineering and in 2005 obtained an MSC in Safety Engineering from Lancaster University. Alan currently works for CH2M HILL as their Nuclear Business Development Manager.  Alan's background is nuclear safety case production where he specialised in Probabilistic Safety Assessment and project management. 

He has been a chartered chemical engineer since 2006. Alan has been an NI member since 1999 and joined the YGN core committee in 2009.  For 2013 Alan takes up the roles of Past Chair.  He has previously organised the YGN annual dinner in 2008, Finland technical tour in 2009, an introduction to Defence in 2010 & 2012 and an Introduction to Nuclear Energy Politics in 2012. For 2013 Alan will be leading the Introduction to Nuclear Energy Politics.

 
   
Leanne Hodgson - 2013 Vice Chair

Leanne Hodgson has been a member of the Nuclear Institute YGN Core Committee since 2008. During this time Leanne has organised the Introduction to Waste Management and Decommissioning event (previously Rough Guide to the Nuclear Industry) and has held the position of Communications Officer. Leanne was appointed Vice Chair in 2012 and has now entered her second term in this role. Leanne is also a member of the Nuclear Institute Cumbria Branch Committee where she is an active organiser of lectures, technical visits and the branch speaking competition.

Leanne has worked in the Nuclear Industry since she graduated from Newcastle University with a degree in Human Genetics in 2004. She entered the industry working in the field of radiobiology research, assessing the cytogentic effects of occupational radiation exposure. Subsequently Leanne has worked in Nuclear Safety Case production and in the field of Waste Management and Decommissioning. Leanne has been a member of the Sellafield Decommissioning Strategy and Technical team since 2012.

   
Amy Bird - 2013 Vice Chair

Amy Graduated from the University of Portsmouth in 2002 with a BSc Marine Environmental Science. In 2007 she joined the Nuclear Industry after spending time within waste management for the NHS. Amy has spent time at the UKAEA Windscale on the Sellafield Site working on the decommissioning of the Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor and Windscale Piles. In 2009 Amy took up the role of Environmental Manager at the Sellafield Ltd Uranic Storage site at Capenhurst. More recently Amy has taken a step into URENCO Capenhurst Nuclear Services where she continues to work on the decommissioning of the gaseous diffusion plant and its associated facilities, alongside the uranic storage project.

After joining the YGN in 2007 and becoming an active member, Amy was elected to joined the Core Committee in 2009.  Along the way Amy has organised Rough Guides and supports and hosts many events including the success of the International Youth Nuclear Congress 2012 in Charlotte, USA. Amy is Vice-Chair for 2013 alongside Leanne, and in addition holds positions on the European Nuclear Society YGN committee and also the International Youth Nuclear Congress Committee for 2014.

 
   
Chris G - 2013 Treasurer  
   

Alys Gardner - 2013 Secretary

Alys graduated from the University of Manchester in 2009 with a Masters in Physics with Business & Management. She joined Atkins in September 2009 and since then has worked as part of the nuclear safety team, gaining experience on a wide range of decommissioning projects and more recently has also worked in the defence sector. Alys is currently working towards becoming a chartered member of the Institute of Physics.

Alys has attended and helped to support a number of YGN events and has helped organise the Annual Dinner for the last two years. She was awarded the YGN Excellence Prize in 2012 and has recently joined the core committee as Secretary.

 

 
Simon Ramzi - 2013 Webmaster

Simon is an Electronics Engineer within the Clean Energy division of AMEC. He has worked in the Nuclear Industry for over a year and his previous experience includes Intelligence Transportation Systems. Whilst working at AMEC, Simon has worked across multiple high profile projects, including the replacement of control equipment at Dungeness B and software development of a tool used to optimise fuel cycles at 6 power stations.

Simon has been active in YGN since he joined AMEC creating promotional material for many of the events that have taken place. On behalf of the IET Manchester Young Professionals, he organized a trip around the AMEC labs at Birchwood park which was a great way of giving people from other disciplines experience of the Nuclear Industry. He has also organized many events for the AMEC staff.

In addition to his work within AMEC and the YGN, Simon enjoys promoting Engineering within schools and he actively volunteers and coordinates such events. By keeping the young interested, he believes that we are ensuring that fresh talent is available in the future.

 

 

Aujas Mistry - 2013 Event Leader
Engineering Your Future, Annual Dinner, Introduction to Commercial and Legal
 

Aujas is a Mechanical Engineer who has been working in the nuclear industry since 2009. Aujas joined Nuvia Limited’s nuclear new build team in April 2012. He is involved in developing Nuvia Limited’s new build aspirations and carries out technical, commercial and strategic activities.   

Aujas has worked previously for AMEC in the structural integrity team carrying out defence projects. He has also worked as a package engineer on a retrievals project carrying out decommissioning activities on the Trawsfynydd site.  

In 2012 Aujas was named as the Young Mechanical Engineer of the Year by the Institution for Mechanical Engineers (IMechE). Prior to this Aujas was also awarded UK Nuclear Graduate of the Year in 2011 from the National Skills Academy for Nuclear (NSAN). Aujas also won AMEC’s graduate speaking competition in 2011 and was a runner up in the YGN speaking competition in 2010.   

Aujas has been an NI member since 2009, been a member of the North West branch since 2010 and member of the YGN core committee in 2010. Aujas has led the Engineering Your Future (EYF) events in the UK for the last 4 years and through this outreach has promoted nuclear to over 1000 students. Aujas also helped initiate and since has led the formation of the YGN excellence prize which has been running since 2011.  

In 2013 Aujas will be leading the Introduction to Legal and Commercial seminar, leading the Engineering Your Future events, leading the YGN excellence prize and helping organise the YGN dinner.

 

 

Chris Holland - 2013 Event Leader
YGN Speaking Competitions

Chris is a physicist who joined AMEC in 2008. He has a Bachelors degree in Physics from the University of Leeds, which included a year working at Heysham 2 Nuclear Power Plant. He also holds a Masters degree in Nuclear Reactor Physics and Technology from the University of Birmingham. Chris's core areas of interest are nuclear analysis and thermal hydraulics. Having worked on a number of current and future reactor systems, he has most recently been working on the ITER project in the south of France.

Chris got involved in involved in the nuclear institute in 2010 and currently sits on the committee for the North West branch as well as being part of the YGN core committee. Previously Chris has been involved in Engineering Your Future events, speaking competition coordination and membership evening organisation. In addition to the Nuclear Institute Chris is a member of the Institute of Physics, a STEM ambassador and a fellow of the World Nuclear University.

 
   
Nathan Patterson - 2013 Event Leader
Defence Seminar

Nathan has been working in the nuclear industry from 2008. Nathan has worked in various organisations connected with the UK’s defence programme covering a range of areas from validation and verification, functional design, manufacture and safety assessment/justification.

Nathan first began volunteering for the YGN in 2009 and joined the YGN committee in 2012. In his time with the YGN Nathan has helped to organise and support a number of events including the intro to defence and the midlands speaking competition.

 

 

Hannah Grimsley - 2013 Event Leader
Energy Politics, ENS
Also: E&T Representative
 
   
Graham Simpson - 2013 Event Leader
Nuclear Safety and Regulation
Also: London Branch Representative

Graham is an ONR Inspector working as a Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) specialist within the Civil Nuclear programme.  Prior to joining ONR, Graham was a consultant and developed his PSA skills by performing reliability assessments for various AGR power stations.

He is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer with approximately 8 years experience.  His career began at Babcock (Devonport) where he developed safety case skills while working within the UK’s Nuclear Defence Industry.  He gained further Submarine experience in the MoD’s Nuclear Propulsion IPT and also spent a year onsite at AWE; undertaking safety assessments and contributing to the development of various major projects.

His interests include triathlon, classic/sports cars and travel.  He is interested in hearing from anyone who may be interested in supporting the NI and/or YGN activities in the London region. 

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