The ENSI Board is appointing Rosa Sardella as new Director of the Division for Radiation Protection

News, ENSI Board, Radiation Protection, ENSI as an employer, ENSI as regulatory body

rosa-sardellaRosa Sardella is to be the new Director of the Division for Radiation Protection at the Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate ENSI. The ENSI Board has appointed the 47 year old, who holds a doctorate in nuclear engineering, as the successor to retiring Division Director Georges Piller, effective July 1st, 2016.

Rosa Sardella has been working at the Swiss nuclear safety authority regulating the nuclear installations in Switzerland since 1997. At present she is Deputy Director of the Division for Nuclear Power Plants. “I am pleased that we have found in Rosa Sardella a Director of the Division for Radiation Protection who has a broad knowledge of the nuclear sector”, says Anne Eckhard, President of the ENSI Board. As Division Director, Rosa Sardella will also be a member of the Executive Board made up of seven persons.

Radiation Protection Division

The Radiation Protection Division has four sections dealing with radiation measurement, the protection of employees in nuclear plants against radiation, the effects of hazardous incidents and emergency preparedness, as well as the physical protection of nuclear plants against external threats. The Division manages, for example, the Network for Automatic Monitoring of the Dose Rate in the Vicinity of Nuclear Power Plants (MADUK), operates an accredited measurement laboratory, and coordinates the emergency organisation of ENSI.
Rosa Sardella studied Nuclear Engineering at the University of Bologna, and obtained her doctorate there in 1997 at the Department of Mechanical, Nuclear, Aviation and Metallurgical Engineering. During her studies she was able to combine her Master’s dissertation with a year’s employment in the French nuclear industry. Following this, for three years she was involved in various projects at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission in Ispra.

Already nine years in the Radiation Protection Department

In 1997 Rosa Sardella joined HSK, the predecessor of ENSI, where she started working in the Probabilistic Safety Analysis section. In 2000, she transferred to the Radiation Measurement Technology and Radiological Environmental Monitoring Section in the Radiation Protection Department, where she organised the operations of the ENSI Network for Automatic Monitoring of Dose Rates.

In 2009 she became Head of the New Nuclear Power Plants Section. In this position she coordinated all ENSI-operations related to the general licence applications for the three new construction projects at the existing Swiss nuclear power plant sites, up until the time of the reactor accident in Fukushima. The focus was on technical safety assessments for the general licence applications. In 2011 she was made Director of the Systems Division. Among her duties in this role was the supervision of ENSI’s response to the reactor accident in Fukushima.

Currently, Rosa Sardella is Deputy Director of the Division for Nuclear Power Plants.