Tag Archives: webinar

May ACS Webinar: Careers in Chemical Safety for Chemists

On May 12, 2022, three chemists who have found careers in environmental health and safety work discussed how they found their way into this field, the opportunities and challenges they have found in making the transition from the laboratory to the safety profession, and provided advice for other chemists considering this career transition.

The presentation file they shared is available below and the recording of the webinar is available at the ACS Webinars web site. The webinar included active audience participation, with several members of the audience sharing their own interests and experiences in the field.

In addition to questions and answers from the audience, the webinar included 4 poll questions about their experience working with EHS professionals in their lab. Their responses are outlined in the figures below.

Resources mentioned in the webinar:

Audience Comments

  • I work as a lab manager at a university that has an EHS department. I earned CHO certification purely for educational purposes. What type of position would I look for to actually use this certification and grow into a safety professional?
  • I worked in chemistry scale up for 20 years before moving into Safety –
  • Great to see the early career/late career questions being asked here – I think the presenters are saying this is an any time opportunity when it is right for you.
  • If your employer doesn’t have an EHS department – do you see this as an opportunity or a problem?
  • The engineering bias is there when things are written down in my experience too – I don’t think that is a blocker in practice.
  • Is there an on line space where people looking to connect through the comments can do that?
  • I would love to learn more about how to address a career in chem safety after being a CHO for my school and district and find a new position after retirement from teaching Chemistry for 30 years.
  • In past I have taken quite a few courses offered by Ken Roy ( NSTA consultant in Safety) while a teacher in CT and have helped to write my chemical Hygiene plan for our school and district and to introduce a Chemical Hygiene officer position. I believe our school and district has become safer as a result of the work.
  • I need to know how to gain certifications that can now support my skills and bring credibility to applying to positions in academic and or industry.
  • Need to know what certifications and courses to take? How to rewrite the resume to best apply for positions? Maybe someone might be willing here to share and to give me some help as a mentor to transition?
  • What kinds of opportunities exist for people freshly done with their undergraduate degree in the area ESH&Q opportunities, or is a Master’s/PhD required for these positions?
  • I work at a small, private liberal arts school that doesn’t have a EHS department. :/
  • I have 20 years industry experience as a formulator. I’m inspired that it’s not to late to switch to a safety career but concerned that my resume will be overlooked as either over or under qualified in that field, or both. What training might be available for such a transition without getting in over my head?
  • When I look at EHS positions, there appear to be far more looking for an engineering background than a chemistry background. Any tips for how to frame transferable skills for people who are in an engineering mindset?
  • What was that free course mentioned?
  • Perhaps someone can address an “encore” career transition after retiring from a technical career.
  • As a chemistry professor at a community college who also does not have an EHS department, I’ve found myself in the roll of needing to educate myself on the EHS concerns. What additional resources would be useful for those of us that need to help build institutional EHS departments?
  • At what point should an R&D organization have a dedicated “full-time” Chemical Hygiene Officer? Our site’s current CHO performs their EH&S duties in addition to their full-time R&D position.
  • Is there any great way of avoiding a near miss as far as Lab safety is concerned
  • And is a lab safety exam necessarily needed in academic Institutions for students doing a major that involves a wet lab environment
  • I have a bachelor’s in Chemistry and an MBA with a concentration in project management. I used to work in the raw-material lab for AkzoNobel in Brazil. I was responsible to generate security codes for handling raw materials in the manufacturing . Once I moved to the US, I had to change careers, but I am interested to go back into the scientific world and perhaps safety.
  • How can we start a joint training joint program funded by ACS with the academia in Egypt and Middle East?
  • Hi, Colin, safety professional in Pharma based in UK – great webinar so far – brilliant presentation from Whitney.

Enhancing Research Productivity Through LST’s

On November 4, 2021, CHAS sponsored an ACS webinar presented by 4 current and recent graduate students about their work with Laboratory Safety Teams (LSTs) and why they took up this challenge. A key reason is that the productivity of their work and the safety of their labs are connected by housekeeping issues they faced in the lab.

The recording of the webinar will be available to ACS members soon, but you can review their presentation file here.

The audience provided many questions and comments to the panel. The questions were discussed in the recording available from ACS Webinars. Some of these issues were:

The Impact of Lab Housekeeping

  • Did you ever see serious accidents because of a lack of housekeeping?
  • An audience member responded: A major lab cleanup in the lab where I was finishing up as a graduate student nearly ended in disaster when a waste bottle EXPLODED. Fortunately, no one was present — everyone had left for dinner. Pieces of broken glass were found at the other end of the lab.

Working with the Administration

  • Have there been any situations where your PI encouraged you to deprioritize safety/housekeeping concerns because they did not put emphasis on it? How would you encourage a researcher who is facing this but interested in LSTs?
  • Have you run into management or leadership that is reluctant to implement changes to safety programs? How did you deal with this when not holding a leadership position?
  • How to get students involved in lab safety if PI don’t show interest on the matter?
  • I think a Lab safety team of students is great but I also think a Liaison between the research labs and EHS has proven extremely beneficial because while EHS looks at compliance and waste removal but as Chemists we often are resource for them as well.

Professional Skill Development

  • I have worked on a safety team and found it initially uncomfortable to give feedback to others in regards to housekeeping and safety. How do we support teams so they feel comfortable/empowered to provide feedback to others in their lab?
  • Lab safety is a big priority in industry (as we all know) and experience with lab safety is a GOOD thing to put on your resume. I’m sure comments along these lines helped me get my first industry job.
  • Kudos for all the safety culture building!

LST Strategies

  • Do you think it’s advisable to separate safety leadership in a lab from the responsibilities of a lab manager?
  • What are some strategies for encouraging students to join the LST on their own accord? It seems important that this not be mandatory necessarily, but how do you get people excited about putting more time into something when everyone is stretched pretty thin typically?
  • What fallout has happened, or not, from the fatal lab accident that occurred at UCLA?
  • What hazards do the LST find most frequently?
  • What systematic changes have you seen that are sustainable?
  • What is the gender breakdown of researchers participating in LSTs? As a safety professional I am sensitive to recognizing the majority role women play in participating in “non-promotable” tasks. If a gender discrepancy exists, how can we address it?”

Educational Opportunities

  • Hello, great webinar! This semester I am working with small groups of students from different labs (internship and rotations), and I think working on safety is a great topic to consider as part of the learning process. Any recommendations? greetings from Peru.

If we educate students before they come to the lab , will it benefit of LST?”

For More Information

ACS Webinar: Working Together to Design Safer Laboratories

Designing laboratories that allow for safe and efficient research requires input and collaboration between researchers, architects, engineers and lab planners. Michael Labosky of MIT, Ellen Sweet of Cornell University, and Melinda Box of N.C. State University discussed the challenges of designing and operating labs from multiple perspectives, using concrete examples from the real world. This ACS Webinar is moderated by Environmental Safety Manager Ralph Stuart of Keene State College and is co-produced with the ACS Division of Chemical Safety and the ACS Committee on Chemical Safety. The webinar was recorded and is available to ACS members at http://www.acs.org/webinars Information from the webinar is provided below. If you have any follow up questions about this webinar, let us know at membership@dchas.org

References cited during the webinar include:

ACS Chemical Health & Safety special issue articles currently available:

 Safe Lab Design: A Call for Papers https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chas.1c00034

Code Considerations for the Design of Laboratories Which Will Also House Pilot Plants
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chas.0c00053

Planning and Building Laboratories: A Collaboration among Many
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chas.0c00081

Controls for University Fabrication Laboratories—Best Practices for Health and Safety
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chas.0c00093

Design and Practice of an Organic Analysis Laboratory to Enhance Laboratory Safety  
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chas.1c00008

Comments from the audience:

  • Working with Undergraduate Students is really a challenging task for us. The information shared through the webinars are really helpful and beneficial for us.
  • We are planning a new lab, it was just great!
  • Very good overview of the challenges associated with the design and maintenance of acceptable air handling for laboratories. The speakers were exceptionally knowledgeable, and this presentation was very useful.
  • This webinar is a new window of safety and security in labs
  • This was definitely for the inexperienced in lab safety design
  • This was an excellent and very relevant webinar. Re-consulting the notes and, more importantly, the recorded version will be useful as a significant amount of relevant information was given verbally and could barely be noted down (lack of time!). Maybe this can be corrected by adding more point-form keywords and statements on slides would help following the talks.
  • This was a great learning experience, I work indirectly with the labs almost every day. Our ventilation systems are top tier but it’s great to understand some of the design aspects and procedural steps to take in order to create an effective and comprehensive system. I may not use this information daily but it’s a great refresher.
  • Someone in the chat had a great suggestion for chemical inventory.
  • Showed me I am on the right track and pointed out some key things that I can further look into to make my lab safer
  • It was very informative and a very good overview.
  • It was beneficial to hear from peer institutions, especially with respect to ventilation. During the Q&A, the questions pertaining to core safety topics for the various levels if chemistry curriculum was also interesting.
  • I was provided with a great deal of additional resources to consult as we begin planning a revamping of our existing high school chemistry laboratory.
  • I hope to put in practice the knowledge acquired in laboratory design for safety and sustainability
  • I have benefited immensely from the little I was able to grab
  • I am working in a lab that has no such facilities and most of the time we ignored it as it was not in our hands. But here in this webinar, I have learnt many safety measures. I think this makes a difference in the safety measures of our lab.
  • I am planning to start a electroplating set up for my research work so definitely it has benefited me.
  • Excellent information from qualified professionals w/ real world experience and helpful insight.
  • El webinar me sirve como soporte para dar recomendaciones en la construcción del laboratorio de la CDMB que se está realizando en estos momentos en Bucaramanga – Colombia. Soy el jefe de ese laboratorio y debo estar preparado para emitir conceptos o aportar en la toma de decisiones para el laboratorio.
  • As EHS professional it is refreshing to see that lab users get more educated and aware of the lab ventilation issues and challenges
  • As an EHS professional, it primarily reinforced information that I already knew. However, the presenters offered good tips or ideas as well.

ACS Webinar: Changing the Culture of Chemistry – Safety in the Lab

Speakers at the webinar included:

  • Mary Beth Mulcahy, Manager in the Global Chemical and Biological Security group at Sandia National Laboratories, Editor-in-Chief of ACS Chemical Health & Safety
  • Michael B. Blayney, Executive Director, Research Safety at Northwestern University
  • Monica Mame Soma Nyansa, Ph.D. Student, Michigan Technological University
  • Kali Miller, Managing Editor, ACS Publications

The session closed with a question-and-answer session moderated by Kali Miller, an ACS Publications Managing Editor, where all three panelists were able to share more insights and advice.

Highlights from ACS Webinar on Nanosafety Research

Nanoparticles are an area of increasing research interest in many fields. However, the risk data related to the safety, health and environmental impacts is still limited. How should lab researchers approach these uncertainties?

Speakers: Tilak Chandra, University of Wisconsin-Madison / Katie Kruszynski, University of Wisconsin-Madison / Markus Schaufele, Northwestern University

This ACS Webinar was moderated by Ralph Stuart and co-produced with the ACS Division of Chemical Safety and the ACS Committee on Chemical Safety.

References cited in the webinar:

Donaldson and Poland, Nanotoxicity: challenging the myth of nano-specific toxicity, Curr. Opin. Biotechnol., 24 (2013), pp. 724-734; 

Gebel et al. Manufactured nanomaterials: categorization and approaches to hazard assessment Arch. Toxicol., 88 (2014), pp. 2191-2211;

Nel et al., Toxic potential of materials at the nanolevel, Science, 311 (2006), pp. 622-627); Steve Oldenburg, Nanosafety: Conclusions From a Decade of Nanotoxicology Research (2017)

OSHA Fact Sheet: Working Safely with Nanomaterials https://www.osha.gov/sites/default/files/publications/OSHA_FS-3634.pdf

Steve Oldenburg, Nanosafety: Conclusions From a Decade of Nanotoxicology Research, nanoComposix, (2017) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-HiWAjqYgg 

Nanotechnology, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/nanotech/default.html 
•3D Printing with Filaments: Health and Safety Questions to Ask (2020)
•3D Printing with Metal Powders: Health and Safety Q. to Ask (2020)
• Continuing to Protect the Nanotechnology Workforce: NIOSH Nanotechnology Research Plan for 2018 – 2025

Dekkers, Susan et al; Safe-by-Design part I: Proposal for nanospecific human health safety aspects needed along the innovation process, NanoImpact, Volume 18, April 2020

Janeck J.Scott-Fordsmand et al, A unified framework for nanosafety is needed, Nano Today, Vol 9, I5, 2014, Pages 546-549 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1748013214001030 

Chandra, T.; Zebrowski, J. P.; McClain, R.; Lenertz, L.Y. Generating Standard Operating Procedures for the Manipulation of Hazardous Chemicals in Academic Laboratories. ACS Chem. Health Saf. 2021, 28, 1, 19-24.

Jaya Borgatta, et. al.; Copper Based Nanomaterials Suppress Root Fungal Disease in Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus): Role of Particle Morphology, Composition and Dissolution Behavior. ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, 2018, 6 (11), 14847-14856.

In addition, the Committee on Chemical Safety’s list of references on nanosafety can be found on its web site.

Webinar: Lessons learned from Beirut and Ammonium Nitrate

CAS will be hosting a webinar on Friday, December 4th at 11:30 EDT.

The Expert View – Lessons learned from Beirut and Ammonium Nitrate:

Register here: https://www.cas.org/science-connect/ammonium-nitrate

Even if you don’t work with industrial levels of ammonium nitrate on a daily basis, the safe handling of this chemical could have implications in your local community. With the recent tragedies in Beirut, are there lessons learned that can help minimize the safety risks?

Join us for an in-depth panel discussion with experts who bring diverse ideas from the commercial, academic, and safety viewpoints from a deeper study into the formulation options, the innovation landscape, and key safety guidelines.

Panelists:

  • Dr. Jimmie Carol Oxley, professor of chemistry at the University of Rhode Island
  • Dr. Vyto Brabauskas, President of Fire Science and Technology
  • Kimberly Brown, Sr. Lab Safety Specialist and Chemical Hygiene Officer, University of Pennsylvania

Date: December, 4th 2020
11:30am – 12:30pm ET – Register to join live or access the recording at a later date: https://www.cas.org/science-connect/ammonium-nitrate

ACS Webinar: Meaningful and Concise Safety Summaries for ACS Publications

The chapter discussed in this webinar is
now available at this link

Safe research is good research. Scientists have an ethical obligation to disseminate safety concerns to downstream users of their research. As the premier journals for disseminating chemical research, ACS Publications has enacted a new requirement specifying that authors address safety concerns in work submitted for publication in all American Chemical Society Journals.

Our speakers:

Sammye Sigmann, Appalachian State University
Leah McEwen, Cornell University
Sara Tenney, ACS Publications

Join Samuella Sigmann of Appalachian State University and the ACS Division of Chemical Heatlh & Safety, Leah McEwen of Cornell University and the ACS Division of Chemical Information, and Sara Tenney of ACS Publications as they discuss the new chapter “Communicating Safety Information” from the 2020 ACS Guide to Scholarly Communication. During this webinar, you will discover how to develop meaningful and concise safety summaries for manuscripts based on risk assessment.

ACS Webinar: Lab Safety for Researchers: Responsibilities, Regulations, and Lessons Learned

Researchers have a responsibility for the safe and ethical handling of chemicals they work with every day in the lab. However, they can be overwhelmed when it comes to understanding safety related laws, policies, and regulations.

What are researchers expected to know? What rules are they required to follow? What are the legal consequences if they are broken? Join program area experts Kali Miller, Mary Beth Mulcahy, and Ralph Stuart to explore the answers to these questions.

Thursday, August 15th at 2 pm Eastern Time

Register at the ACS website

What You Will Learn 
·         The most common questions that have been asked by graduate students about legal aspects of their safety responsibilities in the lab
·         Guidelines and resources for identifying and understanding researchers’ regulatory responsibilities 
·         Lessons learned about practical aspects of managing regulations in the research lab setting 

Working Safely with Nanomaterials in the Laboratory

The open access edited recording of Working Safely with Nanomaterials in the Laboratory has just been added to the ACS Webinars Archive. This broadcast featured Ken Kretchman of N.C. State University, Craig Merlic of UCLA, and Debbie Decker of UC Davis as well as moderator and Associate Director for Emerging Technologies Chuck Geraci of NIOSH.

This ACS Webinar was originally broadcast live on May 16, 2019 and has been lightly edited for time and clarity. This edited recording has just been added to the Archive and has been made open access and free to the public for a limited time only. Please share it now with your colleagues and networks. You can watch the webinar here.

The NanoEHS Webinar Series

Discover more insight from the National Nanotechnology Initiative during their webinar series that features experts from the diverse disciplines and highlights current research on nanoEHS.

Discover more insight from the National Nanotechnology Initiative during their webinar series that features experts from the diverse disciplines and highlights current research on nanoEHS.

Sneak a Peek at the ACS Webinars Archive!
Hundreds of presentations from the best and brightest minds that chemistry have to offer are available to you on-demand. The Archive is divided in to 6 different sections to help you more easily find what you are looking for.

This archive is just one of the many benefits that ACS membership has to offer. If you are not a member look below to see a preview of the what it has to offer and learn more about the other perks of membership.

Improve Your Lab’s Safety Webinar Extended Cut Available!

People who watched the webinar on How to Improve Your Lab’s Safety that the Division co-sponsored in January may be interested to know that the ACS Webinar program has released an “extended cut” version of that webinar.

In this version, we have added responses to a group of questions that we weren’t able to answer in the time allotted in January. The new questions include:

  • Where can I learn more about a system of classification for chemical storage?
  • What are effective ways of getting administration and other departments (like biology) on board with a consistent safety message and culture when old habits are so ingrained and funding is limited?
  • How do we apply a hazard assessment teaching method to a regulatory environment that requires rule based documentation?
  • Do you have any recommendations for safety glasses use in a space that is mixed office and lab use?
  • Do you think they should be manditory at all times if your at your desk in a lab?
  • Does anyone have a good definition of what qualifies as a “near-miss”?  
  • How do you define safety culture as opposed to compliance?

Also, notice that there is a survey question that we would like people’s responses to. Even if you don’t take the time to watch the whole webinar again, please respond to that question so that the Division can continue to improve our member services. 

Please answer this question online

And spread the word to others who may be interested – the webinar is free for anyone to watch.
Thanks for your interest in this!