The purpose of this group is to create a better culture of safety in the academic research laboratories in the Department of Chemistry at Johns Hopkins Homewood campus. This group will provide a space where students can discuss safety concerns. The Committee will address these concerns and/or advocate for them to be addressed by the Department. Individual members will act as safety advocates for their corresponding labs.
Our mission statement:
- Address safety hazards in individual labs as well as across the department facilities.
- Offer educational training resources for Safety Representatives as well as the general population of students in proper lab safety.
- Provide professional development opportunities for trainees in science laboratory management and conduct.
View the CSSC Constitution (last updated: September 2023).
Our current faculty advisor is J.D. Tovar.
Member responsibilities
Our Safety Captains are expected to contribute 2-3 hours of work per month to the committee. This includes attendance at the one-hour monthly meeting, one hour of work with the member’s subcommittee, and one hour as needed on safety-related work in the individual’s lab or on other committee initiatives. Members of the Executive Board are expected to contribute an additional 1-2 hours per month in administrative and organizational work. Learn more on our Membership details page.
Subcommittees
A list of our subcommittees’ current goals is available on our Initiatives page.
- Media & Communications maintains and distributes updates and announcements regarding CSSC events, safety moments, HSE safety “near-misses,” and other related news. The Subcommittee is responsible for maintaining the circulation of these announcements via departmental email, Twitter, departmental Slack, the CSSC website, and committee bulletin board (as appropriate). Committee details and information to be maintained include, but are not limited to: groups website content and formatting, member list and contact info, online safety moment repository, information on educational training opportunities, and information and advertisements of upcoming committee events.
Current Chair: Grant Hall - Development serves to promote chemical lab safety amongst graduate students through providing support for SOP development and documents to ease transitions in/out of a lab. Additionally, the Development subcommittee seeks to bridge the gap between chemical safety and undergraduates through facilitating the Undergraduate Safety Captain Program (USCP). USCP gives undergraduates a platform to voice safety concerns that they otherwise would not have.
Current Chair: Deborah Rodriguez - Operations is responsible for outlining, planning, and executing the logistics of committee- and department-wide safety events. The goal of the subcommittee is to raise awareness of the CSSC through these events and encourage graduate students to think about safety issues, including those that may be considered trivial or unimportant, to ultimately create a stronger safety culture. The subcommittee is tasked with determining which types of events or trainings are most beneficial to the department and acting as lead in planning of said events. An additional standing subcommittee task is the creation of monthly Safety Moments on common safety issues to maintain continuous awareness, to be distributed in collaboration with other subcommittees.
Current Chair: Manuel A. Palma