The Chemical Safety Committee (CSC) is appointed by the Office of the Provost and
serves in an advisory capacity to the President, Vice President for Research, Environmental
Health and Safety, Enterprise Risk Management and the research community on risks
and risk controls required for research involving hazardous chemicals and processes
and physical hazards in the university's laboratories.
Mission Statement
The CSC mission is to provide leadership, coordination and advocacy to ensure the effectiveness of laboratory safety programs, services, policies, procedures, training, initiatives and strategic plans implemented to promote safety and compliance for research involving hazardous chemicals and processes and physical hazards in the university's laboratories and field research.
The Chemical Safety Committee Charter includes additional information about the committee’s policies and procedures.
The following responsibilities have been assigned to the Chemical Safety Committee:
- Assist in the development of new chemical and laboratory safety policies, manuals, procedures, training materials, guidance documents and strategic plans pertaining to hazardous chemicals and processes and physical hazards.
- Review and approve major amendments to chemical and laboratory safety policies and procedures. Recommend new or revised policies for research and teaching labs. Adopt emergency plans for accidental chemical spills or exposures in research labs.
- Address significant chemical safety problems and formulates solutions. Identify areas of concern and define ways to improve lab safety (e.g., training, equipment).
- Review chemical and laboratory safety incident reports involving injury, illness or near misses. Determine corrective actions to mitigate the risk of future incidents.
- Promote compliance with chemical safety regulations, standards and guidelines.
- Assess compliance with laboratory safety policies and advise methods to promote compliance. This may include methods to improve proper use of PPE, completion of required training, corrective actions from lab inspections, shipping chemicals, lab design, lab security or other laboratory safety and compliance risks.
- Serve as a forum to review work practices and procedures for research involving high-hazard chemicals/processes and physical hazards, ensure labs develop SOPs using appropriate templates and recommend SOP amendments to promote safety.
- Provide technical assistance to the university’s Chemical and Lab Safety Program when assessing risk of laboratory experiments involving chemical or physical hazards requiring specialized subject-matter expertise and evaluate the need for external consultants.
- Encourage stakeholders in the university's Colleges, Schools, and Departments to establish chemical safety committees or programs to promote oversight at multiple levels.
- Advocate for solutions to lab safety or compliance risks and any required funding.
- Serve as a forum for the campus community to raise concerns or review complaints regarding chemical safety issues and assist in the resolution of lab safety disputes.
- Evaluate implementation of recommendations in the APLU Guide to Implementing a Safety Culture in Our Universities or guidance in other lab safety culture reports.
- Make specific and actionable recommendations in writing to members of university leadership when necessary to promote a safe laboratory environment. Support the CHO and Chemical Safety Program to escalate unsafe conditions for resolution.
- Review and provide feedback on the Chemical Safety Program’s annual report. This report will include chemical safety and compliance priorities, metrics and annual highlights, and any status updates on chemical and laboratory safety risk controls, successes, compliance challenges and opportunities for improvement.
- Provide an annual risk assessment to the Enterprise Risk Management Oversight Committee via the Research Safety Senior Committee. The risk assessment will identify risks associated with research involving hazardous chemicals/processes and physical hazards in laboratories and will list the major risk controls in place and timelines for controls being implemented to mitigate the identified risks.
This schedule is subject to change since the CSC must verify a quorum attendance at each meeting.
- August 5, 2022,11-12:30 pm
- November 28, 2022, 2-3:30 pm
- February 9, 2023, 2-3:30 pm
- May 11, 2023, 2-3:30 pm
Membership 2022-2023
The Chemical Safety Committee (CSC) will comprise no fewer than eight members. Members are appointed to ensure they collectively have experience and expertise in chemical and experimental hazards, and the capability to assess the safety of research involving hazardous chemicals and processes, and physical hazards and to identify any potential risk to the researchers, other persons, facilities or the environment.
| Member | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Jamie Lead, Chair | Professor, SmartState Endowed Chair; Environmental Health Sciences; Director of CENR |
| Jochen Lauterbach | Professor of Chemical Engineering; CoEE Endowed Chair, Strategic Approaches to the Generation of Electricity |
| Chuanbing Tang | Distinguished Professor / Organic Materials / Nano/ Organometallic / Polymer / Supramolecular |
| Michael Wyatt | Chair of Drug Discovery & Biomedical Sciences |
| Xinyu Huang | Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering |
| Campbell McInnes | Professor in Drug Discovery & Biomedical Sciences |
| Laura Kissel | Professor of Media Arts; Director of School of Visual Art and Design |
| Dmitry Peryshkov | Associate Professor / Inorganic Catalysis / Materials / Organometallic |
| Amy Taylor-Perry | Senior Instructor and General Chemistry Lab Coordinator |
| VACANT | Research Safety Coordinator - School of Medicine (Columbia) |
| Jocelyn Locke | Chemical Hygiene Officer in EH&S Office of Research Safety |
| Jennifer Naglic | Graduate Student in Chemical Engineering |
| Yishayah Bension | Graduate Student in Chemistry & Biochemistry; President of ACS POLY Student Chapter |