Last month the Laboratory Safety Review program celebrated 9 years since its inception! With your support we have accomplished vast improvements in both safety compliance and safety culture. To continue our collaboration, we are launching an incentive program to reward positive safety behavior. The "Look at me in my PPE" promotional campaign was created by Crystyn Chase, a former Laboratory Safety Professional in the College of Biological Sciences and it was well received. We have reached out to all the Deans of schools/colleges for approval to offer this incentive program to your college/school.

Here’s what the campaign entails:

• April 2022, all the schools and colleges that house research laboratories have been invited to participate
• The campaign has dual intentions: to increase the wearing of “minimum attire” (long pants and closed-toe shoes), and to incentivize wearing the proper eyewear, gloves and lab coat during active research.
• The campaign will be communicated ahead of time in newsletters and flyers posted in common building areas
• The assigned safety professional will knock and ask permission before stepping into the lab
• Each participant wearing proper lab attire will receive a raffle ticket
• One winner per month will be randomly selected from each School/College for their lab to receive a pizza party
• Contest and pizza party winner will be publicized in School/College internal communications as well as Safety Services newsletters and website
• We currently have approved funding for running this campaign April to June 2022
• This is an incentive program and while we can take the opportunity to educate lab personnel on proper PPE use, they will not be penalized in any way for not wearing the appropriate lab attire.

The following colleges/schools have accepted our invitation to participate:

• College of Biological Sciences
• College of Agriculture & Environmental Sciences
• School of Medicine
• College of Engineering

School of Veterinary Medicine

 Winner’s for the “Look at Me in my PPE” month of June are: 

• College of Agriculture: Chanapa Mann- La Merril Lab- Environmental Toxicology
• College of Biological Sciences:  Kowalczykowski Lab- Microbiology & Molecular Genetics
• College of Engineering: Vu Quach – Fan lab – Biological and Agricultural Engineering
• School of Medicine: Sheng Yang – Hell Lab- Pharmacology
• School of Veterinary Medicine:  Pires Lab – Population Health & Reproduction

Winner’s for the “Look at Me in my PPE” month of May are: 

• College of Agriculture: April Jungo - Westerdahl Lab- Pathology, Microbiology & Immunology
• College of Biological Sciences: Tammie Tam - Ralston Lab- Microbiology & Molecular Genetic
• College of Engineering: Alex Vargas - Simon Lab- Biomedical Engineering
• School of Medicine: Jesse Gipe – Roshanravan Lab- Internal Medicine Nephrology
• School of Veterinary Medicine: Pavel Morales - Saeij Lab- Entomology & Nematology

Winner’s for the “Look at Me in my PPE” month of April are:

• College of Agriculture: Ming-Fo Hsu - Haj lab- Nutrition
• College of Biological Sciences: JoAnne Engebrecht - Engebrecht lab- Molecular & Cellular Biology
• College of Engineering: Bianca Sheth J. Pena lab- Civil & Environmental Engineering
• School of Medicine: Wendy Tsang -Dandekar lab- Medical Microbiology & Immunology
• School of Veterinary Medicine: Lauren Camp -Shapiro lab – Pathology, Microbiology, & Immunology