Erik Hollnagel
Erik Hollnagel is Professor and Industrial Safety Chair at MINES ParisTech (France) and Visiting Professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim (Norway). He has worked at universities, research centres, and industries in several countries and with problems from several domains, including nuclear power generation, aerospace and aviation, software engineering, healthcare, and land-based traffic.
His professional interests include industrial safety, resilience engineering, accident investigation, cognitive systems engineering and cognitive ergonomics. He has published widely and is the author/editor of 17 books, including three books on resilience engineering. The latest title from Ashgate is “The ETTO Principle: Why things that go right, sometimes go wrong.”
David Slater
David is an Honorary Professor in the School of Engineering, Cardiff, where he is involved in projects such as Marine renewables, Systems Risk and Cyber security and has been responsible for a number of successful sustainable technology start-ups. An early pioneer of Risk Analysis in the nuclear, offshore and oil and gas industries, he has been instrumental in introducing and developing formal risk management in the United Kingdom, United States, Europe and Australia.
He has been closely involved in developing policy in Health and Safety, and the Environment as a regulator and as adviser to United Kingdom and European Governments. He takes a special interest in corporate governance, culture and performance in Health, Safety and Environment (HSE)
BEN ALE
Ben Ale is emeritus professor at TU-Delft in Safety Science and Disaster Management, visiting professor in Risk management at the University of Gent and at the University of Antwerp. Before that was director of research of the Netherlands Institute for Fire and Disaster Abatement (NIBRA), Director of the Dutch national Centre for External Safety of the National Institute for Public Health and Environment (RIVM); and Head of the section for Environmental Quality of the Laboratory for Radiation Research of the national Institute of Public Health and Environment (RIVM).
He has been responsible for the development of a knowledge centre for the modelling of risk in general and for external safety in particular and the creation and development of systems to make risk information readily available for decision and policy makers. His knowledge and experience extends to all areas of risks including chemical installations, the transport of hazardous materials by rail, road and water as well as the risks of air traffic around the airports in the Netherlands including Schiphol.
Havard Prosser
Havard Prosser is a former Chief Environmental Science Adviser at Welsh Assembly Government. The main focus of his work was to use the scientific evidence base to develop and implement policy for environmental protection, biodiversity, climate change, renewable energy, and resource use. Skills include environmental monitoring, statistical interpretation, and risk assessment.
More recently his experience includes work with Cardiff University on scenario development for future land use based on an ecosystem service approach, predictive catchment management for efficient use of water resources, and development of environmental monitoring of land use/management.
Hywel Thomas
Hywel Thomas is Professor of Civil Engineering; the founder Director of the Geo-environmental Research Centre (GRC) at the University and a UNESCO Professor in the Development of a Sustainable Geo-environment. Hywel Thomas is renowned for research into the behaviour of unsaturated soils — those composed of solids, water and air — undergoing processes like excavation or compaction. Hywel has greatly improved our understanding of how liquids and gases move through these soils, such as pollutants seeping from landfill sites, or carbon dioxide being ‘stored’ in coal seams.
Hywel develops and uses sophisticated computer models to predict how chemicals and gases move under a range of conditions of temperature, water pressure and mechanical forces. Hywel contributes his expertise widely, contributing to the United Nations Industrial Development Organization’s work on cleaning up organic pollutants, particularly in West Africa. He is also a consultant to the International Atomic Energy Agency and a member of its network concerned with the geological disposal of high-level nuclear waste
Phil Bowen
Phil Bowen started at Shell’s Thornton Research Centre studying very large multi-phase explosion hazards after the Piper-Alpha disaster in the North Sea, before joining the Energy Group at Cardiff School of Engineering in 1994. He was awarded his Chair in ‘Energy Systems’ from Cardiff University in 2004.
He has served on many committees, including the Institute of Physics’ ‘Combustion Physics’ group (Chair 2009-12), the EU Biofuels Technology Platform (2008-11), the IEC International Standards committee for Area Classification of Explosive Atmospheres. He currently serves on the International Energy Agency (IEA) Technology Collaboration Programme (for Combustion and Emission Reduction), RCUK ‘Energy’ strategic advisory committee (2014-), British Section of the Combustion Institute (2014-), Trustee for UK Explosion Liaison Group (2007-). He has provided specialist advice and consultancy to government and a range of multi-nationals including Ricardo, DNV, BP, Exxon-Mobil, Shell, etc.
Agustin Valera-Medina
Agustin Valera-Medina is a Professor in the School of Engineering in Cardiff University, His research interests include alternative fuels (Incl. ammonia), hydrodynamics, flame stabilization, fuel injection, heat transfer and combustion technologies. He has participated as PI / CI on many industrial projects with multi-nationals including FloGas, PEMEX, Rolls-Royce, Siemens, Alstom, Ricardo and EON, attracting ~£15M in research to Cardiff.
Agustin led Cardiff’s contribution to the Innovate-UK ‘Decoupled Green Energy’ Project (2015-2018) led by Siemens and in partnership with STFC and the University of Oxford, which aims to demonstrate the use of green ammonia produced from wind energy. He has been part of various scientific boards, chairing sessions in international conferences and moderating large industrial panels on the topic of “Ammonia for Direct Use”. He is a Committee member of the Combustion Institute British Section, and chairs the Scientific Committee of the Symposium on Ammonia Energy. Currently, he has supported two Royal Society (UK) briefings on “Ammonia for Energy”, he is main author of the book “Techno-economic challenges of green ammonia as an energy vector”, he is consultant for the International Energy Agency (IEA), and he is a Fellow of the Learned Welsh Society (2024).
BETH MORGAN
Beth Morgan is a highly experienced safety and risk management professional involved in the development, application and implementation of quantitative risk and safety management techniques in the oil and gas, chemical, nuclear and railway industries, over the last 20 plus years.
Internationally known in the field of Quantitative Risk Analysis (QRA). Project management skills in engineering environments, including EPIC contracts, consultancy, and corporate level strategic initiatives. Strong inter-personal skills and effective verbal and written communication ability. Experience also of senior management in the City of London.
Ellen Pawley
Ellen Pawley joined Cambrensis in September 2013 and co-founded Baynet Software in 2014. She has over 20 years’ experience in Information Technology gained across the private, academic and public sectors; successfully gaining Charted IT status with the British Computer Society in August 2014.
She worked in the public sector as a hybrid manager and was the joint commissioning lead for strategic IM&T services at Herefordshire Council through a period of significant challenges. As a service manager in the public sector she was responsible for delivering three strategic outcomes: handling information safely; placing information in context; and making sense of information. She has designed and built service teams from concept to delivery, and managed teams and service delivery through periods of significant change
Chris White
Chris White is a hydrogeologist with 40 years of water management experience in water resource evaluation, contamination & environmental impact. He has used his expertise in recent years to focus on risks related to water security for global businesses, by developing commercial, strategic & sustainable solutions to maintain operational continuity.
This has included evaluating a range of natural and man-made influences and measures to consider for mitigating future impact. He has also managed university research and other projects to develop a water stewardship approach and optimise use of water resources through combining technical, regulatory and societal influences