Joint Safety Team featured in ACS Chemical Health & Safety
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (7/19/2024) – The Joint Safety Team (JST) recently published their successes in the American Chemical Society's Chemical Health and Safety Journal. The JST, a student group made up of graduate students and postdoctoral associates from the Departments of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, has been keeping the chemistry community at the University of Minnesota safe for 10 years.
The paper, titled "Community Connections Committee: How the Joint Safety Team of the University of Minnesota Innovates Promoting Vertical Safety Engagement" focuses on the JST's Community Connections Committee (CCC). The CCC aims to engage with the larger scientific community by connecting with high school science instructors, early stage researchers at primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs), and local chemical industries.
Vilma Brandao and Gretchen Burke, both Chemistry PhD and JST student leaders wrote: "The University of Minnesota JST is continuously gaining recognition as a leading student safety team in universities across the country, and we are thrilled to be part of this work and see that our Community Connections Committee work has been recognized at this level. The CCC is a unique idea, the first example of an outreach focus within a lab safety team. It connects our graduate students to high school teachers, PUI professors and students, and industry professionals, each collaboration engaging in chemical safety in a unique way. It is an organization created to spread safety knowledge and connect our work, as in the name, with the broader chemistry community. It is great to see the committee's achievements in its first two years be recognized in such a way, and exciting to see the committee continue to evolve - this year, the group is hosting the third annual high school teacher safety workshop in August, and organized a tour of Sherwin Williams labs this spring."
Joint Safety Team
The Joint Safety Team is a researcher-led organization focused on improving the culture of safety in chemical laboratories at the University of Minnesota. The JST consists of graduate student or postdoctorate Laboratory Safety Officers (LSOs) within the Departments of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. LSOs support the safety of their labmates by translating safety knowledge to their respective labs, liaising between the JST and the research group, directing lab members to the right resources for safety questions, and partaking in JST events.