Environmental Health & Safety promotes lab safety all year round but for one week in February they take it up a notch for Lab Safety Awareness Week. Now in its fourth year, Lab Safety Awareness Week recognizes the efforts of laboratory health and safety programs, while providing EHS an opportunity to speak directly with faculty, staff and students.
Lisa Benford, director of Environmental Health and Safety, notes that Lab Safety Awareness Week is an important time in the year for the department and touts the meet-and-greet events the department hosts during the week.
“A lot of times we focus on a specific area, like Biosafety Month, but this week is about all the areas of safety that are in EHS, such as chemical, biological, radioactive materials, hazardous waste and occupational safety,” Benford said.
“It also allows us to directly answer questions, about such things as how to dispose of hazardous waste, how to register the research that they’re working on and so forth. So, this is a chance for us to answer any question about safety.”
The meet-and-greets at the University of Houston took place at Health 2, the RAD Center, the Science and Engineering Research Center, and UH Sugar Land. At each event, EHS asked lab personnel about lab safety related questions. If the lab personnel answered correctly, they received a choice of syringe-style writing pen, or safety glasses.
Additionally, EHS gave out two pamphlets aimed at ensuring lab personnel are better prepared and informed about safety inspections from the department. One pamphlet had suggested Yearly Safety Tasks by month, detailing what lab personnel should focus on each month, while the second one had Weekly Lab Safety Habits that could improve safety awareness.
Chemical engineering PhD student Sambita Choudhury was among the first students to stop by and talk to the EHS at Health 2, where the first meet-and-greet took place. It proved to be educational for Choudhury.
“I did not know there was a particular Lab Safety Week, but it’s really good that there is one,” Choudhry said.
Austin Hahn, a biochemistry graduate student, stopped by the meet-and-greet when EHS
was at SERC and appreciated that they made themselves available via face-to-face interactions
for Lab Safety Week.
Biochemistry graduate student Lydia Mireles echoed those sentiments, adding that it's
convenient for EHS to have the meet-and-greets as it allows lab students to meet the
people in the department and put a face to the people you are emailing.
Putting faces to the department is one of the additional goals for the week and one that Benford notes is an important one.
“We want lab personnel to meet us and talk to us to develop a partnership,” Benford
said. “So, this gave us that opportunity to be seen as personable.”