Barnabas Speaker: OV Lyn Westwood

We were delighted to welcome OV Lyn Westwood (Co 87-89), Head of Engineering at Rolls-Royce Civil Nuclear, as the most recent member of the Barnabas Group.

The Barnabas Group is made up of distinguished OVs who have excelled in their chosen profession and are invited to speak to the School about their experiences, lessons learned, and the encouragement they feel able to pass on as a result. You can read more about the Barnabas Group, and its members, here.

When Lyn left King’s, she studied Chemical Engineering at the University of Birmingham. Following this she worked at Sellafield, as Safety Case Manager & Operations Support (working with a new-build project on a brownfield site) and then as Operations Support Manager. She then went on to work for the Office for Nuclear Regulation in Liverpool, becoming a specialist in radioactive waste, spent fuel and decommissioning.

Using this specialist knowledge Lyn spent the following three years at Hitachi-Europe, becoming a Safety Case Advisor at Hitachi Nuclear Energy. In 2018, Lyn joined Rolls-Royce, firstly as Safety & Licensing Specialist before moving to her current role.

During her Barnabas Day Assembly address in the John Moore Theatre, Lyn gave some incredible insights into her career experiences, including working in Japan. She shared how her time at King’s had inspired the curiosity and confidence that are the mainstays of her career progression.

Following the assembly, Head of Alumni and Business Development, Hannah Sparrey joined Lyn on a walk around the School. As Lyn had not been back to the site in years, she was interested to see how the School has evolved since boarding ceased, remembering for instance how in her time it was strictly forbidden for girls to enter the boys’ boarding houses, such as School and The Hostel. They even found the ground floor window in Hostel House through which Lyn used to talk to some of the male boarders she knew!

Taking her first steps into School House, Lyn met with Assistant Librarian Marion Capell (Hon OV) and Sixth Former George C in the Matthew Armstrong Library. George had found Lyn’s assembly fascinating and was particularly keen to hear more about her time at Sellafield.

Morning Break gave the opportunity for Lyn to spend some time with Headmaster Gareth Doodes and Heads of School Katie P and Bobby R, and to be presented with the Barnabas Shield.

It was then wonderful for Lyn to retrace her steps back to the Science Block, where she had spent much of her time when at King’s. Visiting Mr Pearson in Physics, his enthusiastic sixth form class had a number of questions for Lyn, with topics ranging from the nuclear industry to asking about her time working in Japan. In Dr Poole’s (Hon OV) Chemistry class, Lyn refreshed her formulae knowledge, before heading onwards to DT. There Lyn was interested to have a tour of the building with DT Technician Julie Palmer (Hon OV) and see the projects on which the current King’s pupils are working, then tackling some very thoughtful questions from Mr Wilson’s (Hon OV) class. There was a brief moment to pop into a Maths class as well, seeing what the A -Level students were working on, before heading to lunch.

Over lunch with Careers Lead, Claire Gent, Lyn was joined by a group of L6 and U6 prospective engineers, helping to advise them on a wide range of issues, including which universities are best for the different engineering specialisms, and calmly fielding a variety of in-depth questions about subjects such as nuclear fusion.

We are very grateful to Lyn for giving of her time so generously and helping us to celebrate STEM and Women in Science.