ExxonMobil PALS: �Strengthening academic lab safety culture

Sam Tallury

Product Innovation Manager, Research – Novel Products

ExxonMobil Engineering and Technology Company

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ACS Fall Meeting 2024; Denver, CO

Division of Chemical Health and Safety

Session: Raising Safety in Research

Wednesday, August 21, 2024

Why talk about academic lab safety?

Graduate students are particularly vulnerable to safety incidents

• Inherently inexperienced
• High people turnover, leading to lack of experienced guidance in the lab
• Willingness to engage in higher-risk behavior
• Clarity of safety expectations can vary among PIs and academic institutions
• Dynamic technology environments, shifting focus areas and resource needs
• More autonomy and likelihood for off-hours work

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ExxonMobil PALS: Strengthening academic lab safety culture

• ExxonMobil PALS case for action and mission statement
• Early success and current focus areas
• Considerations for LSTs seeking to establish/expand safety partnerships

Case for Action

• Academic lab safety gaining national attention in late 2000’s and early 2010’s:
• Lab fatalities and serious injuries making news headlines: UCLA, Texas Tech, Yale, U of Hawaii, and others)
• Chem Safety & Hazard Investigation Board published various academic investigations and recommendations
• Dow introduced Dow Lab Safety Academy website
• OSHA released new materials addressing physical hazards in labs
• ACS created Safety Culture Task Force to develop guidance, suggestions, and recommendations for strengthening academic safety culture

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• University-industry safety partnership pioneered by Dow with UMN, Penn State, and UCSB in 2012

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• Surveyed safety experience from recent ExxonMobil hires and COOPs
• PhDs shared “academic horror stories”
• “Took a little while to get used to ExxonMobil’s safety culture”
• “Compared to industry standards, safety in the university labs is practically non-existent”
• “More often than not, safety values are not displayed or enforced by leadership”
• “Large gap between Industry and Academia”

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PALS Mission & History

• Started in 2013 with 3 academic institutions: GT, UT, and Wash U
• Expanded over the next several years to include the UF, UH, and TAMU.
• Hosting annual Safety Workshop for grad students, postdocs, faculty, and EH&S staff
• Facilitating safety networking among partnering universities
• Visiting campuses to open new lines of communications and develop safety-centered collaborations

Mission: To establish and maintain mentoring relationships with faculty, staff, and students of partnering universities in order to encourage and enhance their laboratory safety cultures, resulting in safer academic laboratory environments and engraining potential recruits with lab safety best practices commonly found within the chemical industry.

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PALS Early Success

• Integration of safety minutes to the start of lab meetings and classes
• Behavior Based Safety Observations
• Lab walkthroughs
• Program for ensuring all students have access to lab coats (UT)
• Lab improvement collaborations with industry lab professionals
• ACS publication with Georgia Tech
• Workshop topics:
• Hazard analysis
• Risk Management
• Incident / Near Miss reporting, investigation, and learning
• Fundamentals of safety leadership
• Influence without authority
• Developing safety culture
• Human Performance and slow thinking

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PALS Current Focus Areas

• Enhancement of the cross-university safety team network
• Establishing PALS LST liaisons platform for meeting throughout the year to progress cross-university collaboration projects
• Increasing safety program engagement among graduate students
• Developing annual LST action plans and driving accountability
• Supporting development of a harmonized safety certification program
• Intended to demonstrate deeper appreciation for safe operations and safety leadership to further enhance job recruitment profile
• Incorporates digital learning and practical demonstration opportunities that can be made broadly available across universities
• Exploring support through the Campus Safety, Health, and Environmental Management Association (CSHEMA) for broader industry recognition

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Considerations for establishing safety partnerships with industry

• Leverage existing local industry relationships to explore partnership opportunities
• Alumni/recruiters
• Existing research partnerships

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• Identify engagement opportunities that drive consistent touchpoints
• Request participation in annual safety seminar and/or course lecture series
• Include lab walkthroughs and LST engagement as part of annual industry symposiums

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• Identify opportunities for smaller groups (e.g., LST members, research teams) to visit industry labs for learning about safety best practices

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• Involve faculty Safety Champions/Advocates and EH&S staff in relationship development to support sustainment long term

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Annual Workshop, August 2024

About the Workshop

Lab Tours

• Observe safety best practices in the industry setting
• Gain better understanding of industry requirements
• Gather ideas that could be implemented in university settings

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University Best Practice Sharing

• Build “Safety Network” among universities
• Learn what’s “working” in other universities
• Collaborate to implement safety culture development ideas

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ExxonMobil Insights

• Share tools to support safety awareness
• Provide guidance for enhancing safety leadership

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A History of Academic Laboratory Safety Challenges

March 2016 – Thea Ekins-Coward, a 29-year-old postdoc researcher at the University of Hawaii was combining high pressure H2, CO2, and O2 into a lower pressure container to feed bacteria when a spark from a digital pressure gauge not designed for use with flammable gases caused an explosion that took Thea’s arm.

December 2008 – Sheri Sangji, a 23-year-old UCLA chemistry research assistant, was transferring tert-butyllithium when the pyrophoric material contacted air and ignited. An open flask of hexane was knocked over, catching the solvent and her clothing on fire. Sheri died a few weeks later.

April 2011 – Michele Dufault, a 22-year-old astronomy and physics major at Yale, was working alone after hours in the Chemistry Machine Shop Lab when her hair became entangled in a lathe, resulted in death. She was due to graduate the following month.

January 2010 – Preston Brown, a 29-year-old Chem / BioChem grad student at Texas Tech, was synthesizing an explosive material when the compound detonated. Preston suffered burns to his hands and face, a lacerated eye, and severed three fingers in the blast.

Consider the number of labs incidents and near misses that go unreported every year