Remembering Professor Bruce Hanson
Colleagues will be sorry to learn of the death of Professor Bruce Hanson, the University’s Leadership Chair in Nuclear Process Engineering in the School of Chemical and Process Engineering.
Professor Hanson, who also served as Honorary Professor of Nuclear Engineering at UCL, and was a Visiting Senior Fellow at the UK National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL), joined Leeds in June 2012, having previously spent more than 25 years in the chemical and nuclear industries across a range of functions.
As a young chemical engineer, Bruce spent time in a chemical plant making perfumes, subsequently working for over 20 years in the nuclear industry for BNFL, Nexia Solutions, and NNL. In these latter roles, he managed major works such as the NDA’s UK civil plutonium disposition project, the THORP advanced fuel flow-sheeting project, and a molten salt development programme. In his later years, he also headed university links for NNL.
On joining Leeds, he continually expanded our nuclear engineering capacity through the leadership of major grants from the EPSRC, EU, and industry partners on spent nuclear fuel and materials management and reprocessing, the recycle and treatment of wastes for disposal, as well as on education in nuclear and radiochemistry.
He established an active laboratory within the School, and last year, he attended the opening of MULTIForm (multiphase fluid flow in nuclear systems), a National Nuclear Users Facility. He also cared deeply about student education and professional advancement, acting as Director of Student Education, and mentored both students and staff alike.
Colleagues will remember Bruce for his broad range of expertise, his leadership and vision, and his integrity and professionalism. They will also celebrate his dignity, empathy, friendliness, and sense of humour. We have lost both a capable academic colleague and a good friend, and this will be felt by the whole nuclear research community, not only in the UK but worldwide. Our thoughts are with his family, friends and former colleagues at this sad time.
