Helen Cassidy
Manager – Operations & Inventory
Australian Radioactive Waste Agency
Australian Radioactive Waste Agency
Helen Cassidy joined the Australian Radioactive Waste Agency (ARWA) in November 2023 and works in a senior management role as Manager – Waste Operations & Inventory. She leads a team working with waste holders across Australia on preparedness for future Commonwealth radioactive waste disposal pathways and on increasing the knowledge / understanding of waste and waste holder management practices within ARWA.
She has had a varied career in technical, project, programme and senior management within the UK nuclear industry focussed on improving radioactive waste management practice. Following graduation with a Masters in Chemistry with a Year in Industry from Imperial College, London, Ms Cassidy joined British Nuclear Fuels Ltd at the Sellafield site in the UK on their graduate trainee programme and worked for Sellafield Ltd for 8 years in a range of roles relating to radioactive waste characterisation, treatment and disposal; including leading work on opening the off-site waste route for incineration of radioactive waste for Sellafield Ltd. In 2012, Ms Cassidy joined LLW Repository Ltd as a National Programme Implementation Manager; delivering and leading work to drive transformational change in how Low Level radioactive waste was managed in the UK. She became Head of the UK LLW National Programme in January 2019. Ms Cassidy joined the LLW Repository Ltd Executive Leadership Team as Head of Business Transformation in September 2021 and became Head of Performance Improvement for Nuclear Waste Services in September 2022. She joined ARWA in November 2023.
Ms Cassidy is representing Australia by leading an IAEA Working Group on cost assessment under the ENVIRONET NORM Project and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.