Emma Swiergon

Emma Swiergon is an experienced technology manager with over 12 years of experience across the energy sector and consultancy, with over 5 years specialising in hydrogen and energy transition projects. At NZTC, she leads strategic initiatives, NZTC’s Hydrogen roadmap, delivers key technology development projects, and produces industry reports and thought leadership articles.

Emma’s expertise spans project management, technical analysis, stakeholder engagement, risk assessments, safety studies, and safety case development for offshore assets. Emma supports business cases, proposals, and funding requests, with current projects including HOP2, ScotWind-2-Hy. Additionally, she provides support to Hydrogen Backbone Link and Energy Hubs and contributes to working groups and forums to advance the hydrogen economy.

She holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Monitoring, Modelling, and Reconstruction, and a BSc in Geology and Physical Geography.

Catherine Sherwin

With over 13 years of experience in the energy industry, Catherine has worked across Subsurface, Technology and Environmental disciplines. Catherine started her career as a geologist for an oil and gas operator, covering development, exploration and operations, before moving to the latter end of the upstream business into crude offloads and supply operations working closely with a number of UK Terminals.

For the last 5+ years Catherine has worked in Technology building expertise in technology management, governance and strategy, with a strong focus on identifying, tracking, trialling and deploying technologies on and offshore UK.

Catherine has always had a particular interest in decarbonisation and emissions reduction which lead her to a role within the environmental discipline before combining both interests and expertise together.  At NZTC, she holds the role of Emissions Reduction / Industrial Decarbonisation Technology Manager.

She holds a Masters in Petroleum Geoscience from Imperial College, London and a Geoscience M.Sci from University of Durham.

Darren Gee

Darren Gee is a System Engineer, with experience across a number of Industries delivered worldwide. Darren has over 18 years experience in the oil and gas industry – from Work Package Engineer through Test Engineering and Engineering and Project Management. Darren has a background in Aviation and Subsea Engineering and has delivered a number of large engineering projects including first of type systems including Workover Systems, Subsea Compression and Robotic inspection vehicles. Darren has been involved in many Subsea Production Controls projects directly within engineering delivery, through Project Engineering and leading Engineering departments including Systems and Project Delivery,  Analysis, and the Chief Engineers office.

As Head of Government Projects at NZTC, Darren is responsible for all projects delivered through direct or partnered arrangements with Governments. Previous to this position Darren led the NZTTP through to the Industrial phase and previously managed the Energy Hubs phase one working with a variety of partners, contractors and stakeholders to develop technologies required to enable these projects, covering areas of Hydrogen Production (on and offshore)  inc, utilisation, storage and by-products along with Alternative fuels, and CCS

Hayleigh Barnett

Hayleigh Barnett is the Technology Principal for Hydrogen, Alternative Fuels, and CCUS at the Net Zero Technology Centre. In this role, she delivers on and oversees the strategic direction and delivery of key initiatives across these focus areas. Her work spans the development of innovative projects such as the Hydrogen Backbone Link, the Energy Hubs project and Phase 2 of the Hydrogen Offshore Production project.

With over 12 years of experience in engineering and business development, Hayleigh brings a strong blend of technical expertise and commercial insight. She has successfully delivered a wide range of projects—from early-stage technology concepts to detailed engineering projects— and has also supported the development of early technology readiness level concepts. With her clear communication and collaborative approach, Hayleigh is passionate about driving forward sustainable energy solutions.

Jason Paterson

Jason Paterson is a senior leader with over 12 years of international experience in the mining and energy industries.

As Technology Principal, he leads a team of analysts and engineers to deliver the centre’s technology roadmap for Offshore Renewables and Grid development.

His team supports NZTC’s broader Net Zero activities by identifying emerging technologies and their industrial applications, as well as delivering strategic thought leadership content to support the organization’s wider strategy.

Lewis Harper

Lewis Harper brings over a decade of expertise in subsea engineering with experience across IRM, Diving and subsea construction/decommissioning scopes. Lewis has been instrumental in driving business development initiatives and has played a pivotal role in growing support for our collaborative activities.

As Programme Manager for Collaborations at NZTC, Lewis oversees a range of projects working alongside industry partners. He leads The Wells Decommissioning Collaboration, which aims to accelerate the qualification and commercialisation of well plug and abandonment technologies. Additionally, he manages the CCS Components Collaboration and the Methane Measurement JIP.

Niki Chambers

Hayleigh Barnett

Hayleigh Barnett is the Technology Principal for Hydrogen, Alternative Fuels, and CCUS at the Net Zero Technology Centre. In this role, she delivers on and oversees the strategic direction and delivery of key initiatives across these focus areas. Her work spans the development of innovative projects such as the Hydrogen Backbone Link, the Energy Hubs project and Phase 2 of the Hydrogen Offshore Production project.

With over 12 years of experience in engineering and business development, Hayleigh brings a strong blend of technical expertise and commercial insight. She has successfully delivered a wide range of projects—from early-stage technology concepts to detailed engineering projects— and has also supported the development of early technology readiness level concepts. With her clear communication and collaborative approach, Hayleigh is passionate about driving forward sustainable energy solutions.

Jason Paterson

Jason Paterson is a senior leader with over 12 years of international experience in the mining and energy industries.

As Technology Principal, he leads a team of analysts and engineers to deliver the centre’s technology roadmap for Offshore Renewables and Grid development.

His team supports NZTC’s broader Net Zero activities by identifying emerging technologies and their industrial applications, as well as delivering strategic thought leadership content to support the organization’s wider strategy.

Graeme Booth

Graeme is a Chartered Aeronautical Engineer, with over 25 years’ experience in industry, having held various technical and leadership positions within the aerospace, power, and energy sectors. As a Chief Engineer for Siemens and Doosan Babcock he has focussed on process improvement and digital technology, which he has leveraged to drive innovation and improved ways of working within engineering.

He has a keen interest in cross-sector knowledge sharing and is committed to applying solutions from other industries, such as aerospace and automotive, to accelerate the adoption of digital tools within the energy sector. He has a deep understanding of data science, process integration, and method development, which he has used to deliver IoT solutions, cloud-based applications, integrated processes, data analysis, and visualization. Passionate about delivering digital-based systems that meet industry challenges and continuously, Graeme keeps himself up to date with new technology developments and is keen to promote the potential benefits of new technology, seeking opportunities to get personal experience wherever possible.

He co-chairs the NSTA Common Data Toolkit Task Group, which forms part of the Digital Strategy Group outlined in the 2022 “Digitalising Offshore Energy Systems” strategy document. This group’s objective is to establish a common data toolkit that facilitates controlled and automated data sharing across the offshore energy sector. The focus is on leveraging existing operational, asset, decommissioning, and emissions data to drive innovation, cost reduction, and net zero.

Graeme is a strong advocate for the energy transition and recognizes the critical role that digital technologies play in accelerating the transition. He provides thought leadership and strategic focus to the Offshore Energy 4.0 team, which comprises a multidisciplinary group of experts that are passionate about data, digital systems, remote operations, robotics, and autonomous systems.

Molly Akers

Harriet Fox-Bekerman

Harriet has over 10 years of experience as a well engineer, including P&A projects, decommissioning and roles relevant to CCUS and geothermal energy. At NZTC, Harriet specialises in hydrogen, focusing on the Energy Hubs projects, which aims to establish large-scale green hydrogen production in Scotland. Her role involves exploring the options to optimise the efficiency and economic viability of Energy Hubs. Additionally, she organised the electrolyser funding competition which supported development of early stage electrolyser technologies to accelerate the development of green hydrogen production.

Harriet holds an MSc in Renewable Energy Engineering, with her dissertation focusing on geothermal energy in the UK.