Thursday 21 May 2020

Chemical Engineering Department Recognized for Lab Safety

The University of Arkansas and Texas A&M were the only Southeastern Conference schools noted in the study, which was published in ACS Chemical Health & Safety. The study outlines best practices for institutions to establish laboratory safety teams and features information from institutions including Johns Hopkins University, Yale University and Northwestern University.

The lab safety team was founded by Ph.D. student Jessica Morris and chemical engineering undergraduate student Austin Brown in 2016 as a student organization called the Engineering Safety Club.

Tammy Lutz-Rechtin is the department's safety coordinator and serves as a mentor to the student group alongside Tom computer science major jobs, professor and the Maurice E. Barker Endowed Chair. Morris and Brown worked in Spicer's lab when the club was formed.

Lutz-Rechtin said the U of A club is an important way to embed safe habits early in a researcher's training.

"Chemical engineers are responsible for many manufacturing scale-up processes where small problems in a lab have the potential to become large scale problems when applied to industry production," she said. "Starting good habits early is important, as well as providing opportunities for hands-on learning. We want to be proactive and not wait until issues arrive as well as teach critical thinking skills. Good engineering and research should be inherently safe."

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