"Keep your head. Use your strength to keep moving forward." Hannah Paterson, Technical Manager for the Spent Fuel Consolidation Programme at Sellafield Ltd.

Hannah Paterson is the Technical Manager for the Spent Fuel Consolidation Programme at Sellafield Ltd. She is also engaged in outreach activities, including Chair of the Nuclear Institute Young Generation Network.
Hannah grew up in Aberdeen and loved school where she questioned everything with her inquisitive mind. She now lives in Cockermouth and when she isn’t working, she likes to go fell walking and mountain biking.

Hannah studied medicinal Chemistry at the at the University of Edinburgh where she was successful in securing a two-month paid for summer placement at Gallus BioPharamceuticals, St Louis Missouri, USA working in the process development laboratory. The experience she gained here made Hannah realise she wanted to get a job in industry rather than carrying on studying for a PhD.

Hannah spent, what felt like a long time, searching for a job before coming across the ‘Nuclear Graduate’ scheme where she initially started at Sellafield before working for a number of companies over a two-year period, including a secondment to the US Department of Energy (DoE) where she led on international cooperation activities for the International Programs Office for the DoE Office of Environmental Management. She also went to the Scottish Government in the area of nuclear decommissioning as a Waste Policy Advisor and to NNL R&D working on phase transformations during hot isostatic pressing of plutonium waste forms.

Hannah then took a one-year secondment into the NDA as a National Waste Inventory Manager working on the materials and samples strategy, working with all the NDA group companies writing a paper.  

Hannah is now back at Sellafield as a Technical Manager in Spent Fuel Management working on strategy and technical aspects, including the Spent Fuel Consolidation Programme tasked with receipt and long-term storage of a range of fuels from Dounreay.

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