News (2001)

30th November 2001 - Mike Thorne joins Quintessa as an associate consultant

Quintessa is pleased to welcome Mike Thorne as an Associate Consultant. Mike has over 25 years experience in radiological protection and the environmental transport of radionuclides. Much of his work has related to estimation of the radiological impacts of liquid and gaseous releases of radioactive effluents, and of solid radioactive waste disposal. Mike is a former member of ICRP Committee 2 and is currently the President of the UK Society for Radiological Protection. He has published books on the environmental distribution and transport of radionuclides, and on the pharmacodynamics of chemical carcinogens in man.

1st October 2001 - Yuji Aoyama joins Quintessa

Quintessa is pleased to welcome Yuji Aoyama. Yuji trained in electronics engineering and system science. He has eight years experience in the research and development of parallel analysis systems for electro-mechanical devices and structures. He is currently focusing on parallel analysis system for the performance assessment of geological disposal systems.

10th September 2001 - James Penfold joins Quintessa

Quintessa is pleased to welcome James Penfold. James trained in Physics and Radiation and Environmental Protection. He has worked as an environmental consultant for six years, focussing on radioactive waste management issues. His main areas of interest include the assessment of radioactive waste management facilities, contaminated land, BPEO, restoration strategies for nuclear sites, and the management of technologically enhanced naturally-occurring radioactive materials.

3rd September 2001 - Kenji Kawano joins Quintessa

Quintessa is pleased to welcome Keji Kawano. Kenji trained as an experimental physicist, and has ten years experience in studying the superconducting and magnetic properties of high-Tc superconductors. His research work includes the visualisation of the spatial distribution of magnetic fields and the evaluation of field distributions from experimental results.

13th August 2001 - Andrew Bowden joins Quintessa

Quintessa is please to welcome Andrew Bowden. Andrew is a chartered geologist with a first degree in Chemistry and Geology and a Masters degree in Mineral Exploration. Following twenty years varied geological and project management experience in mining and mineral exploration world-wide he spent eight years with UK Nirex Limited as Manager for Geology in the characterisation of the Sellafield site in Cumbria as a potential site for radioactive waste disposal. His special interests include geostatistics and the application of evidence based methods of uncertainty analysis to geological interpretation.

1st August 2001 - Barbara Watkins joins Quintessa as an associate consultant

Quintessa is very pleased to welcome Barbara Watkins as an Associate Consultant. Barbara has over 20 years experience of studying the behaviour of contaminants in the environment and assessing impacts arising from contaminant releases to the biosphere. Her areas of expertise include quantitative safety assessments for radioactive and hazardous waste disposal, the transport and bioaccumulation of radionuclides and heavy metals in terrestrial and aquatic environments and the effects of climate change on the biosphere.

1st August 2001 - David Savage appointed to Editorial Board of 'Geofluids' Journal

David Savage has been appointed to Editorial Board of the new Blackwell Science journal 'Geofluids'. Geofluids intends to provide a forum for original research into the role of fluids in mineralogical, chemical and structural evolution of the Earth's crust and publishes papers in the fields of groundwater, geothermal fluids, basinal brines, petroleum exploration, and metamorphic/magmatic fluids. The Principal Editors are: Grant Garven (Johns Hopkins, USA); Bruce Yardley (Leeds, UK); and John Parnell (Aberdeen, UK).

12th June 2001 - Stakeholder Involvement in Nuclear Waste Decisions

Quintessa and Greenstreet Berman Limited have agreed to work together to provide clients with consultancy support in the area of stakeholder involvement in risk assessment and decision making for nuclear waste management and disposal.

Greenstreet Berman is a strategic risk management consultancy serving the UK nuclear and high-hazard sectors and associated national and international regulatory and funding bodies. It is known for innovation, integrity and the responsible implementation of its proposals. Greenstreet Berman has a unique combination of risk assessment, risk communication and stakeholder involvement expertise.

The combined expertise of Quintessa and Greenstreet Berman provides nuclear waste organisations and regulators with a powerful team to help tackle the key issue of nuclear waste management and disposal, namely gaining stakeholder acceptance.

For further information please contact David Hodgkinson (David Hodgkinson) or David Collier (david.collier@greenstreet.co.uk).

6th June 2001 - Mike Egan joins Quintessa

Quintessa is pleased to welcome Mike Egan. Mike trained in physics and worked briefly as a teacher before starting a career in environmental assessment research and consultancy. Over a period of nearly 20 years, he has tackled environmental risk management problems world-wide in the oil and gas, nuclear power generation, mining and process industries. This has included acting as facilitator in decision workshops focused on environmental options evaluation for solid and liquid waste management. More recently, the majority of his work has been related to the design and implementation of assessments for radioactive waste disposal, with a particular focus on the role of risk information in decision making.

1st May 2001 - Winner of Haiku Competition

Congratulations to Peter Grindrod of numbercraft (www.numbercraft.co.uk) for his winning entry to our radioactive waste Haiku competition:

Precious elements
once our source of power
deserve a decent burial

1st January 2001 - alphaXML Launched

Quintessa launched a joint venture subsidiary, alphaXML, on the first day of the 3rd Millennium to provide specialist help to public and private organisations seeking to reap the benefits of the newest technology on the Internet - XML - the Extensible Markup Language.

The Chief Technology Officer of alphaXML is Paul Spencer, author of XML Design and Implementation (Wrox Press). Over the past three years Paul has advised the UK Government, financial institutions and the travel industry on their XML strategies.

alphaXML is targeted at public and private organisations that wish to derive the maximum benefit from exploiting their data using web technology. To achieve this goal, alphaXML will work in association with a network of independent IT consultants and in partnership with IT companies.