Yale University is committed to environmental protection, occupational health, and safety in all of its programs and activities. To help improve the culture of safety in chemical laboratories, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows within the Department of Chemistry gathered to form the Joint Safety Team (JST), whose purpose is to promote a practical and substantive safety culture and to equip students and researchers with the skills to safely work in a range of laboratory settings at Yale and beyond. Composed of representative safety officers from each lab in the department, the JST is distinct from Yale’s Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) office in that it is primarily an educational and community-building body striving to change the way chemists engage with laboratory safety in the following ways:
- By improving safety awareness and literacy through programming and outreach campaigns
- By working with EHS to build networks of support between lab safety officers and, consequently, between labs
- By partnering with industry to broaden our understanding of safety standards
The JST welcomes graduate students or postdoctoral fellows to help us continue to improve the safety culture of the Chemistry Department at Yale. Contact us via email with questions or suggestions. Our monthly meetings are open to attend for those interested in learning more about us.