Vetting, human reliability and the importance of leadership

Speakers: Mr Khairul, National Nuclear Energy Agency of Indonesia (BATAN), George Foster, Amport Risk Ltd, Cheryl Homer, Nuclear Transport Solutions (NTS) and Christine Noonan, Northwest National Laboratory.

Chair: Professor Christopher Hobbs, Co-chair of the Centre for Science and Security Studies (CSSS).

This month's Nuclear Security Culture Programme (NSCP) webinar will take the form of a roundtable discussion on the importance of vetting, human reliability and leadership within the context of nuclear security culture.

Some key issues that the panel will hope to address include:

• The issue of insider threats and how vetting, human reliability programmes and leadership can help minimise and prevent the risk of insider threats over the course of a person’s career.
• Lessons learnt from industry about implementing human reliability programmes.
• The interplay between vetting, human reliability programmes and leadership and how they each contribute to an effective nuclear security regime.

Biographies

Mr Khairul

Mr. Khairul is Senior Nuclear Security Officer at the Center for Informatics and Nuclear Strategic Area Utilization, National Nuclear Energy Agency (BATAN) of Indonesia. He has assisted his director in the area of nuclear security and physical protection from 1986 to 2021.

He was invited by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as a guest lecturer to several IAEA regional/international training courses on physical protection as well as a workshop on nuclear security culture.

He also joined with IAEA expert mission at IPPAS for the Thai Government in 2005, IPPAS for the Australian Government in 2013, and IPPAS for the Japanese Government in 2015, IAEA Mission INSServ 2008 (Sri Lanka Government).

He has been actively involved in enhancing nuclear security in Indonesia and the region. The development of self-assessment methods for nuclear security culture in cooperation with the IAEA is one of his major accomplishments.

Cheryl Homer

Cheryl Homer is the Safety, Security & Environment (SSE) Directorate Manager at Nuclear Transport Solutions (NTS) formerly INS. Cheryl has worked in the Nuclear Industry for circa 18 years and joined INS in late 2007 from British Nuclear Group.

George Foster

On leaving military service, George Foster took up the role of first-in-post Director of Security at Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL) in Caithness, Scotland. In this role, he was responsible for all aspects of enterprise-wide security delivery associated with the protection of nuclear material, its transhipment nationally and internationally, and the protection of sensitive nuclear information. 

Following his role at Dounreay, George took up a newly established role of Managing Director of the Security Business Unit in Babcock International Group, within the Defence and Security Division. George sat on the Divisional Board. In the summer of 2017, he formed Amport Risk Limited to provide senior strategic and operational security and resilience consulting services to the Critical National Infrastructure with a principal focus on the Civil and Defence Nuclear Sectors in the UK and overseas. Amport Risk is also a consortium partner in the BEIS sponsored King’s College London global Nuclear Security Culture Programme, a UK element to the Global Threat Reduction Programme.

Christine Noonan

Dr. Christine Noonan is a social scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, WA. Her research focuses on optimizing security programmes, including mitigation of insider threats. In this role she leads a group of threat analysts, polygraph examiners and support specialists who provide expertise in determining the credibility and seriousness of threats to national security assets.

She has implemented domestic and international security programmes with various US federal agencies and serves as a consultant to the International Atomic Energy Agency delivering courses on mitigating insider threats in nuclear materials facilities around the globe.

Dr. Noonan is an active member of the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals. She received a doctorate in Law and Policy from Northeastern University and has graduate degrees in intelligence, information science, and cultural anthropology.