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10 2016 Wendell D. Weart Lifetime Achievement Award Enrique Adolfo Biurrun was born and raised close to the foothills of the Andes in western Argentina to a family of wine farmers on September 8 1950. Leaving behind the family tradition he moved to study Mechanical Engineering with the Jesuits at the Catholic University of Crdoba in his country of birth where he also discovered his interest for nuclear physics and nuclear engineering. After his MS graduation he moved in 1975 to Germany the country that has become his homeland to study Nuclear Engineering at the RWTH Aachen University where he graduated in 1980. After 8 years of work in RD on radioactive waste repository long term safety at this university where he obtained his PhD on this field in 1988 he joined DBE the company charged with construction and operation of the repositories for radioactive waste in Germany. Enrique was shortly thereafter promoted to head of the Development Projects Department in DBEs Division for Technology and Development and focused in this position in the early nineties on spreading the wealth of know-how and specialized engineering developed in Germany for deep geological repositories to Western and Eastern European countries. International cooperation was a central key word in this work. Enrique participated in quite a number of European Unions projects carried out after the end of the cold war era in Central and Eastern Europe including Ukraine as well as in the Russian Federation. These projects were part of a large effort by the European Union bringing western nuclear safety culture and practices to these countries as many of them were to become European Union new members. A key instrument for this fruitful international cooperation was the CASSIOPEE grouping created in the early nineties by the waste management agencies of six leading Western European countries in whose work Enrique was strongly involved from the very beginning. CASSIOPEEs work continues until today currently focusing among others on Ukraine. After creation of DBE TECHNOLOGY GmbH Enrique moved in 2002 to this wholly-owned subsidiary company that took over all DBEs engineering assignments other than the work for the German federal repositories. In this capacity he represented DBE TECHNOLOGY and DBE in a number of international institutions and groupings and managed project work for customers from Europe and overseas including among others Japan Canada and Argentina. In 2010 he was appointed chairman of WATEC the international advisory body to IAEAs Deputy Director General for Nuclear Energy on waste management matters. Soon thereafter his peers elected him chairman of the steering committee of DISPONET an IAEA grouping on radioactive waste surface disposal. Since the mid-nineties Enriques work had focused on near surface disposal where he saw his projects maturing until realization. Among them remediation work at the Richard Repository in the Czech Republic with the implementation of a hydraulic cage in some chambers of this underground but near-surface facility a novel solution developed by DBE TECHNOLOGY under Enriques leadership and the design of an option for disposal of very low-level waste mainly from power plant decommissioning for the Mochovce repository in Slovakia currently under construction. Since 2011 the development and licensing of a Bulgarian repository for low- and intermediate-level waste carried out by an international consortium with Enrique as the technical leader. This facility which will become the first new European repository in more than a decade when it starts receiving waste in 2020-2021 is currently in the procurement phase with site preparation for construction already under way. Enrique is particularly proud that the joint initiative of colleagues from the Sandia National Laboratories the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and himself suggested during a meeting with Sandia in Albuquerque in 2009 was successful in re-invigorating the then dormant US-German cooperation in salt repository science and technology. This cooperation with yearly one or more workshops dedicated to share scientific knowledge and technological experience and with joint projects already delivering valuable insight was later the basis for creating the so-called Salt Club under the auspices of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency so bringing the bilateral relationship into a wider international context. The very fruitful US-German joint work is now a valuable example of international collaboration to advance waste management solutions. The Salt Club is an effective vehicle for sharing these two countries large wealth of scientific knowledge and experience with others that might consider disposal in salt formations an appropriate solution for their radioactive waste management tasks. After retiring from DBE TECHNOLOGY in 2014 his work now focuses on supporting the realization of the Bulgarian repository. In addition Enrique is currently leading a European Union project aimed at delivering by 2018 the technical design and licensing documentation for a radioactive waste repository for Iraq which shall provide an urgently needed solution for the decommissioning and remediation waste awaiting appropriate management in this country a legacy of the 1991 Gulf war. Dr. Enrique Biurrun Senior Adviser DBE TECHNOLOGY GmbH