Two Aggies represented Texas A&M University at the ExxonMobil Partners in Academic Laboratory Safety Workshop and learned how to better implement lab safety techniques.
ExxonMobil’s Baytown Technology and Engineering Center recently hosted 80 graduate students from six universities across the nation for its annual Partners in Academic Laboratory Safety (PALS) Workshop. Two Ph.D. candidates from Texas A&M were among those who attended and are bringing valuable lessons from the workshop back to their labs.
Chen-Hao Wang, inorganic chemistry Ph.D. candidate, enjoyed learning more about ExxonMobil’s lab practices and left with a new value instilled in his lab practices.
“The thing they emphasised most was that nobody gets hurt,” Wang said.
Wang serves as the lab safety officer for his lab within the department, where safety is of utmost concern for him and his peers.
“Learning new safety practices from ExxonMobil and other schools at the workshop was very impactful,” Wang said. “We have already implemented practices we learned about at the workshop into our labs.”
Ph.D. Candidate, Mario Cosio, attended the workshop as a non-voting member of the lab safety committee for the department of chemistry.
“For me, lab safety is the most important practice in the lab,” said Cosio. “You want to make sure that everyone who comes into the lab leaves with the same amount of fingers and limbs as they came in with.”
As a teaching assistant, Cosio will use a lot of what he learned from the workshop in the lab with his students. His hope is that what he learned will help make the workplace safer.
“What really resonated with me was that a lot of the safety efforts at other schools are student lead,” Cosio said. “Going to ExxonMobil helped me realize I didn’t need to wait for faculty or advisors in order for me to do something concerning lab safety because I, as a student, could take the initiative on leading those efforts.”