Project 67
Funded by the European Union
Project News and Activity Updates
The Project Key Experts
Dr Hendrik Visser
P67 Key Expert: Project Team Leader
Key Facts:
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PhD Chemistry and MSc Molecular Sciences.
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Highly experienced Team Leader.
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Over 15 years’ experience in a multicultural work environment, leading multi-disciplinary, multicultural projects.
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More than 8 years’ experience organising and leading complex international projects.
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Extensive experience in communicating in multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural environments.
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More than 12 years’ experience managing projects in non-proliferation, biosafety/security, life-sciences, and infrastructure upgrades/capacity building, including two bio waste management projects.
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Lead implementer for two EU projects.
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Fluent in English (spoken, reading, written), intermediate in Russian.
Biography:
Dr. Hendrik (Henk) Visser has over 20 years of experience in managing cooperative, international projects that deal with CBRN issues. Beside Project 67, he currently is the lead implementer of the EU CBRN CoE Project 53 (Strengthening the National Legal framework and Provision of Specialized Training on Bio-Safety and Bio-Security in Central Asian Countries). Since 2005, he has managed over 40 projects in Armenia, Belorussia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan. The projects that he oversaw covered technical areas, such as: bio-safety/bio-security, disease surveillance, toxicology, public health studies, drug development, diagnostics, cancer research, and agriculture, as well as, managed various physical upgrades to bio-laboratory facilities. As part of his responsibilities he has engaged with partner country governmental officials, experts and international funding agencies.
Between 2002 and 2005 he was a visiting scientist in the Russian Federation as part of an US Governmental sponsored visiting scientist program, to study the three-dimensional structure of membrane molecules of Yersinia Pestis using NMR spectroscopy. Before that he undertook a short post-doc at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory after he had completed his PhD in Biophysical Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley in 2001. He obtained his MSc degree in Molecular Sciences at the Wageningen Agricultural University (The Netherlands).
Dr Frederic Coulon
P67 Key Expert: Chemical Waste Management
Key Facts:
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Professor of Environmental Chemistry and Microbiology at Cranfield University.
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20-year international career in environmental chemistry, diagnostic strategy and risk and research active in treatment and remediation processes for pollution control across contaminated land, waste and wastewater sectors.
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Advanced technical knowledge in Hazardous waste (hydrocarbons and derived products, heavy metals, explosives); Environmental fate, transport and risk assessment; Site investigation and remediation; Waste management and regulations; Waste management best practices; and Risk communication.
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Excellent international Project Experience
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Fluent in English, French and Italian.
Biography:
Dr Frederic Coulon is Professor of Environmental Chemistry and Microbiology at Cranfield University (UK), with a 20-year international career in environmental chemistry, diagnostic strategy and risk. He is research active in treatment and remediation processes for pollution control across contaminated land, industrial and hazardous waste and wastewater sectors. He is recognised for his internationally leading contribution to the evaluation of the environmental fate of petroleum hydrocarbons and heavy metals in urban and polar environments and its implication for bioremediation, analysis and risk assessment. His work has enabled the construction of innovative decision-support tools for contaminated sites that has improved the confidence in remediation (restoring to use) technology, reduced remediation costs and minimised waste disposal to landfill, with subsequent savings in CO2 emissions. His work and reputation in this area further influences policy development and provides pragmatic, risk-based solutions to remediate contaminated land.
Frederic has an MSc in Biochemistry (Hons) obtained in 1999, a DEA in Fundamental and Applied Microbiology (Hons) obtained in 2000 and a PhD in Environmental Chemistry and Applied Biology (Distinction) obtained in 2004.
Mr Thomas Pottage
P67 Key Expert: Biological Waste Management
Key Facts:
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BSc Hons, Medical Microbiology.
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Team Leader in the Biosafety, Air and Water Microbiology group at Public Health England, UK.
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14 years’ experience in the field of Biosafety.
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Advanced experience in biosafety, waste management, decontamination, environmental microbiology, aerobiology, Bio-response, guidance/scientific writing and biocontainment.
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Previous Team Leader responsible for writing and delivering the UK government’s Recovery Handbook for Biological Incidents, identifying biological remediation and waste management.
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Member of the UK’s CBRN Waste Guidance Group and the UK’s Government Decontamination Service’s Environmental Decontamination Group.
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Over 7 years’ international project experience in the field of biosafety and biosecurity on behalf of the European Commission and European Space Agency.
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Mother tongue English.
Biography:
Thomas Pottage is a project team leader in the Biosafety, Air and Water Microbiology group at Public Health England, UK. He has been part of the group for over 13 years, having previously worked on the UK’s national Scrapie plan for Orchid Bioscience. Thomas has worked on a range of projects during his employment at PHE within the Biosafety, CBRN, waste management, aerobiology, environmental microbiology and decontamination fields. He has been involved in a number of projects investigating Biosafety and Biocontainment, through both practical and desk-based studies. Thomas has worked within the CBRN and waste management fields for a number of UK Home Office projects managing the production of the UK Recovery Handbook for Biological Incidents. The UKRHBI guides the user through an evidence-based framework to identify the most appropriate recovery and waste management options after deliberate, accidental or environmental contamination of a range of areas. The UKRHBI project also involved delivering training on how to use the Handbook to attendees from a wide selection of disciplines.
Thomas is an experienced trainer in Biosafety and Biosecurity, and Good Microbiological Practice both in the UK and internationally, having delivered high containment working courses in the UK and Jordan. More recently he helped deliver the Biosafety and Biosecurity and Train the Trainer for laboratory workers in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan on the CBRN CoE P53. During the West Africa Ebola outbreak, he was team lead for the European Mobile Laboratory whilst in Liberia, working at high containment within a low resource infrastructure. As part of the EU Horizon 2020 project European Research Infrastructure on Highly Pathogenic Agents (ERINHA) Thomas completed a large literature review investigating the evidence base for containment and engineering controls within high containment facilities. Thomas is a key team member on multiple multinational projects for both the European Commission and European Space Agency.
Mr Peter Salzer
P67 Key Expert: Radiological and Nuclear Waste Management
Key Facts:
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Chemistry Engineer (MSc. Equivalent). Expert in radioactive waste and spent fuel management.
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15 years with DECOM providing engineering support in the area of spent fuel and radioactive waste management and decommissioning of nuclear facilities, input into safety guide proposals of radioactive waste, participation in PHARE projects and participation in periodical safety reviews of the repository.
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Consultant of the JAVYS, a.s. –responsible for decommissioning of nuclear facilities, management of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste in Slovak Republic, including institutional waste and disused sealed radiation sources.
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Over 10 years experience responsible for institutional radioactive waste management (including disused sealed radioactive sources).
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Highly experienced in International projects delivery.
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Excellent reading, speaking and written Slovak, English and Czech. Good command of Russian and Hungarian.
Biography:
Peter SALZER graduated from the Chemical University in Prague, Faculty of Inorganic Chemical Technology, Department of Radiochemistry and Nuclear Fuel Technology as Graduated chemistry engineer (MSc. Equivalent) in 1972. From 1974-1992 he was associated with the newly established Institute of Radioecology and Applied Nuclear Techniques in Košice (East Slovakia); with the exception of year 1981, when he worked for the Nuclear Power Plants Research Institute in Trnava, being involved in research projects developing technologies for solidification of liquid radioactive waste. During his working for the Institute of Radioecology in the seventies and eighties, he developed methods for neutron activation analysis with small neutron sources, radioisotope energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence analysis, later he was involved in studies concerning behaviour of radionuclides and metals in soils. At this time, he was also responsible for management of radioactive materials and isotopes, including sealed sources, within the institute, from their ordering, through to their recording and control of use to the management of institutional radioactive waste. In years 1991-92 he worked as the Institute deputy director responsible for co-ordination of research activities.
In 1993 he moved to the Slovak Nuclear Regulatory Authority newly established after splitting-up former Czechoslovak Federation. At the radioactive waste management department, he participated in the regulatory activities (inspections, licensing, review of documentation, proposals of legislation, etc.). At this time, he was also involved in the area of boundary questions between radiation protection and nuclear safety and participated in establishing the EIA processes within the nuclear area. During his work for the Slovak regulator he closely collaborated with corresponding units of the International Atomic Energy Agency and their activities. Since September 1997, till 2012 when he retired, he worked for the DECOM Ltd. (later Deconta, Plc, later DECOM, Plc.). This small engineering company provided engineering support for both operators and regulators in area of radioactive waste management, including management of institutional waste and disused sealed sources, also in the area of illicit trafficking of radioactive materials. Mr Salzer participated in the elaboration of various types of safety documentation (e.g. 4th version of the National repository Mochovce safety case), on elaboration of various types of environmental impact assessment and statement documentation, research and legislative activities supporting the regulatory authority, on coordination of the Slovak geological disposal development programme. At the same time, he participated on various international projects, e.g. “Management of spent sealed radioactive sources in Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia” or acted as a project manager for the EC/DG TREN Service Contract “Study on regulations governing radioactive waste disposal in Europe”. He also participated as a member of repeating IAEA expert missions in Armenia, Romania, United Arab Emirates.
In the period of 2007-2013, Mr Salzer was appointed to act as a member of the Board of Governors of the Slovak National Nuclear Fund. Representing Slovakia, he participated in activities of the working group “European Repository Development Organization” (established as a free continuation of the EC-FP SAPIERR projects) and also on “NAPRO” working group elaborating the Guide for implementation of Article 12 of the COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 2011/70/EURATOM establishing the European Community framework for the responsible and safe management of spent fuel and radioactive waste.
Since February 2013 to the present day, he acts as a consultant for JAVYS, a.s. within various areas of spent fuel and radioactive waste management (including institutional waste and disused sealed sources).