Karine Herviou was appointed IAEA Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Nuclear Safety and Security on 16 June 2025. Ms Herviou brings over three decades of leadership and expertise in nuclear safety, emergency preparedness and response, and international regulatory collaboration.
Prior to her current appointment, Ms Herviou was the Deputy Director General of the French Authority for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection (ASNR), where she oversaw safety review and R&D for France’s civil nuclear activities. Her career is marked by strategic leadership in nuclear safety, crisis management, and innovation in safety oversight.
Ms Herviou has led major safety reviews across a wide spectrum of nuclear technologies, including small modular reactors, fuel cycle facilities, and life extension of nuclear facilities. She has also played a pivotal role in shaping national emergency preparedness and response strategies.
From 2020 to 2024, she served as Deputy Director General of the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN). During this tenure, she enhanced synergies between ?safety research and expertise, which also addressed the integration of artificial intelligence into these two areas.
Her earlier roles include Director of New Reactors and Safety Approaches at IRSN (2017–2020), where she chaired key OECD/NEA and European Technical Safety Organisations Network (ETSON)?working groups on advanced reactors and championed systemic safety methodologies that integrated human and organizational factors.
Ms Herviou also served as Head of IRSN’s New Reactors Department (2012–2016) and led the safety review of the Flamanville EPR project (2009–2016). Notably, she contributed to France’s first post-accident policy and played a central role in emergency response development during her leadership of IRSN’s Emergency Preparedness Division (2003–2009).
She holds an Advanced Graduate Degree in Nuclear Engineering and an MSc in Nuclear Reactor Physics from INSTN Saclay, France, as well as a Master’s in Physics from the University of Paris XI – Orsay.
