Sarina Schwartz-Hinds on Lab Safety, Software, and Science

It's about maintaining that institutional knowledge, right? When we think about like a lab, right? It's really its own, it's own unit, almost its own like small business or company within a larger organization, right? In particular in academia. And it's kind of amazing how much like Pia's postdocs, everyone is kind of like on their shoulders, right? For maintaining this living organism in a way, right? You know, don't forget that, make sure that manual for that, you know, ancient HPLC that some house still works, right? You have to have that like old computer from like 98 or something. So having one place for it, the university or company, right, this is their software. - Hi, welcome to the Science Fair podcast. I'm your host, Susan Keatley. I'm a PhD chemist, writer, and I love talking to scientists. On the Science Fair podcast, I aim to bring you conversations with scientists doing fascinating, cutting edge work on all kinds of interesting phenomena, ranging from physics to chemistry to biology, and even the nature of science itself. In this third season of the podcast, every other week, two episodes will come out. On Mondays, there will be a shorter, 10 minute episode, linking the scientists' research to what's happening in the classroom. And then on Thursday, the full length interview. So come along and tune in for some Science Fair. - Our guest today is Serena Short Tines, joining us from the Boston area. Serena is a product manager at a software company that specializes in lab safety. The company is called Sci-Shore. Serena has a background in chemistry. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Haviford College, and went on to complete a master's degree in chemistry from New York University. I reached out to Serena about the podcast when I read on her LinkedIn page that she works at the intersection of science, safety, and software. I loved this description. It made me think about the importance of safety in the lab on a lot of levels. Personal safety in terms of lab accidents, but also longer term exposure to certain chemicals and environmental safety. And I really felt that I wanted to learn more about how software tools can help with safety. Many of our listeners in science classrooms might be learning about lab safety right about now, especially chemistry students. Perhaps some of you out there just learned about the eyewash or what to do if there's a fire or a chemical spill. And you might be wondering, what does safety look like in a real lab? Serena is going to shed some light on this. She'll talk with us today about what she does and how the field of safety and science has changed in the past decades and what challenges remain. Serena, welcome to the show. (upbeat music) - Thank you, Susan. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me on. Excited to chat today. - So Serena, I'd love to start out by having you tell our listeners about your path to where you are today. What initially got you interested in science and how did you decide to pursue a career focused on safety in science? - Okay, so this is one of my, one topic I like to talk about with young people on occasion. I was really lucky I got to chat with my undergrad institution did like a small panel on this year's ago. 'Cause I think it's not obvious, right? Especially in like high school or younger about what the career options are for you, right? There's like teacher, doctor, lawyer, syndrome, all of that. And for me, you know, I'd been in science, you know, on and off since I was a kid 'cause those were my parents or scientists. So it was always an option. When I was in college, I was like, okay, I think I want to go to med school. I think I want to be a doctor. And my undergrad advisor actually told me he's like, okay, you know, you might go down that path, but you might actually take some of these science classes and decide you don't want to go to med school after all. And he was right. I took Jen Cam and I really loved it. I like, you know, the math, I like the lab aspect. And then I just kept going. I went to graduate school originally with the intention to either become a PI or work in industry. And I was, you know, partway through the PhD and I was like, you know what, I don't think I want to stay in the lab long term, right? And frankly, the job market for, you know, the type of chemistry I was doing, like bio and organic. It wasn't that good. So I'm like, okay, let me, let me see what other options are. And I was trying to figure out what to do. I was actually maybe a little bit lost trying to figure it out. And I'd always been interested in lab safety if I'm figuring out my different rules interesting. So I started looking at jobs for environmental health and safety, which is like kind of the, it's almost a jargon-y term, but that is the term where you see in industry and universities for safety here. And when I was looking at those jobs on LinkedIn, I was applying to a bunch of them. And this company popped up. It was then called BioRFT. And now it's size sure. And this was 11 years ago. So the company then, it wasn't a startup. It's been around for like 20 years, but it was, it was smaller than. And they had this job description. I was like, wow, I'd never considered a software company. I didn't know what like a product team was. That's what I was, you know, as the first product team member then. And so I kind of fell into it. And honestly, I loved it, right? I'm still doing it because it's, it's a lot of fun. That's wonderful. And you're right that we often don't know that so many different careers exist. I love that your chemistry professor originally said, well, you know, there might be something else. I think that's really great for people to know and know that it's okay to go on this path of exploration. It is. It is. And there might even be careers that, you know, right for students today, careers that in 10 years, right, they don't exist yet now. Yes. So my daughter is 11 and she'll often ask, you know, what kind of job do you think I'd be good at? And my husband and I say, we probably a job that doesn't exist yet. You know, these are your skills. You're really good at these things. And, you know, you'll probably know better than we do when you're about to go get your job. Absolutely. Yeah, it's like, I get like my job. I love it. I think I'm so lucky to be a product manager. But it's not like on those lists of, you know, like job quizzes in high school. Yeah. Tell me what specifically you love about being a product manager and maybe to do some introspection, like how do you think it's a good fit for your skill set and the things that you like? Yeah. So how does CORE, it's about finding out like what problems people have, you know, whatever industry you're in. And then figuring out, okay, how do we maybe solve that, right? At its, at its CORE, it's like one part of the role that I like to think of is being the bridge between, you know, like the user of the product so that could be your customer or maybe not, right? Sometimes the person buying the software is different than the person using it day to day. And sort of bridge between them and the development team. And being that, that translator and reading into not just like what people ask for, but what are they, you know, what are they actually trying to do? What do they need to do, right? We don't just need like, oh, it's not just like a link here or a button here, like that. Maybe that's one way to fix things, but you don't want to just like digitize a paper process, for example. Yeah. So that's what I, that's what I like about it. Do you feel like you were good at that kind of process and different ways early on when you were working in a lab? With my role, or being at this particular company, right at SciShare, and I've really used my chemistry and my experience in the lab there day to day. But I think, you know, product management, communication with people, attention to detail, ways of seeing patterns, just like openness to learning and listening to people. So maybe not skills direct from the lab, but certainly in terms of that, you know, a monitoring process through undergrad and graduate school. I mean, my, you know, my early career days are bringing, bringing that forward here. Yeah. I always encourage, right? It's the jobs that one ends up with. It might not be exactly what they, they trained for. There's a lot of, a lot of options out there. So can you tell us what are some of the top safety concerns that real labs, whether in academia or at a company that real labs face? Yeah. I'd say on the chemical side, just dealing with what things are actually safe to store together or mix together is one that can come up. Another one is forgetting that let's say, like you can't put flammable solvents, for example, or like liquids that have a certain amount. of volatility and like a commercial freezer fridge. It has to be one of these what's called like an explosion proof of refrigerator, which when I first saw that like when I first entered the lab, I was like this is so dramatic, right? Like some of this I think, you know, scientists in the lab, you get a little bit desensitized to seeing all these warning labels and again things that feel dramatic when, you know, you're working with one of like the, you know, OSHA 10 personagens or something, right? Like on a day-to-day basis, at a certain point it just kind of feels, you know, normalized. So I think keeping in mind that okay, these hazards are real, these things can actually happen. Those directions are there, you know, for for a reason. I think that's an amazing point you make about being sensitized. It almost makes me think of like the safety card on an airplane. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like how many times have we seen that card? And actually my husband, when we fly, he takes the card out and he reads it every time. And I started doing that too, because I just think, you know, we should we should know, but I do and I can see in the lab, you know, you see, you get like warning fatigue because you see all them day after day. Yeah. So we were just talking about like top safety concerns at lab faces. So yes, there's issues with chemical storage. What they're stored next to or how you store them. What are some other issues that yeah, or I'd say kind of on the other end of this like warning fatigue is we have with like modern science, right? It's very interdisciplinary. So it's like separating out like biologists and chemists. My impression is that that's a lot more blurred than it used to be, right? And what we find with our customers doing, you know, what myself as a chemist considered like biology work, I can't believe right. Some of the chemicals that you have to work with these days. And it's all packaged in these little kits, which I think are amazing from like a scientific workflow standpoint. But from a chemical safety standpoint and tracking standpoint, it's like a million little bottles, some of them proprietary. And I think it can be hard for people to figure out, you know, what's going to go where, where do we store this? And maybe not aware that, oh, in this kit, like in my lab where I'm not used to doing everything in a few mud, maybe with this kit in particular, I have to use this component in a few mud. Or I was talking to one of our customers today and they're concerned about folks trying to use like for melda hide, like a really common chemical, right? The preservative for a lot of, you know, like anatomy tissues, all that, trying to use that in what's called a biosafety cabinet, which is, you know, like a device designed to protect ourselves to a certain degree and from you, right? And then somewhat protect you from them. But it's not designed for chemical attributes, right? It's a filter. It's not an exhaust hood. And that's something that this is, this is a major company, right? I was talking with, and this is something that their AHS team has to play really careful attention to, right? Because you know, it's like the smartest people in the world in our labs. And, but their experts in the science, and they may or may not be toxicology experts, right? So this is another one of those kind of gotchas and again, opposite of that, that fatigue of everything is so bad, is not being used to treating everything that way, right? And then folks and kind of, you know, maybe get a little off guard or maybe they're working in a lab or they're, you know, there's one fume hood all the way in the corner or something like that. So that's another area that that I hear about, right? It's hazardous chemicals and something that's not just like another synthetic organic lab. I think that is so interesting. And you're right. I think that maybe 20 or 30 years ago, you could make a list of what you'd find in the chemistry lab and a biology lab and they maybe the vent diagram maybe wouldn't overlap so much. But it's completely different now. And I love the point you make about these kits too. You may have a very small amount or something, but I don't know if you have a lot of kits, a lot of people working on it, that small amount is now a big amount. And there are particular concerns. And dealing with like fire load, right? Like how much flammables you have in a certain area, right? Just it gets complicated, right? It's a lot to track, a lot to think of. And those are just some of the items that you know that come to mind for me in terms of like top issues for, you know, from a chemical safety standpoint, kind of my expertise here. I know on like the biosafety side, there's probably long list of things that I don't, you know, I don't see on day to day with my role. But there's there's new things every day there. Yeah. How has safety software helped? So this is one I've seen somewhat of an evolution with this, right? With my time at the company here, right, working with, working with folks. And I'd say in the early years, one one thing that that we did, you know, with our software was helping EHS teams kind of break away from this like, uh, reputation they had as being people who are just there to check the box kind of this like safety cop mentality, right? Where, you know, they again, like, it wasn't seen as a partnership between scientists and EHS because I think, frankly, for a long time, it wasn't right. There wasn't that mutual understanding on, on those sides. And so as software was brought in, it's like, okay, let's say instead of, you know, your, you know, your local chemical hygiene officer instead of them emailing you to take training, let's just automate that. And then when you talk to the actual person, let's make it about something they can help you with, right? And kind of building that, building that relationship. And also communicating with, with the scientific community at a given company that, hey, safety is something we care about, right? Safety is something that as a company or as a, you know, university we care about. And we want to build this culture at the safety culture or something that, you know, is in day to day. So I'd say that's where we see, we see a lot of it. There's also the other side where we've talked about safety, which is, you know, certainly an area that I think everyone cares about. The other side of this is compliance, right? And compliance is about following the rules, following the laws, having the right, the right documentation. And what I really like about what's possible with software is that you can automate and just make it easier to do the compliance parts. Because I want as little time as possible, right? As little time as needed actually on compliance. And I really want our AHS teams to have that opportunity to focus on safety, right? And do those things that software can't do. Right? Software can't talk with a person or do hands-on with work with them, right? About, okay, here's how we actually, you know, set up this, you know, hydrogenations. It doesn't blow up something like that. Yeah, it's almost like the software has helped the humans focus on the uniquely human part of the interaction and the things that maybe we're irritating, you know, you could have an email do or like a form. So people might be more conducive to some of this. Exactly. And just bringing it all in one place, right? Like I think in everyone's day-to-day lives, right? You have like all these different systems that I've seen these, I've just seen some of these jokes on Instagram. It's like you're a new hire to a company and they're like log into your zaha and complete it. You know, like these jokes about how there's like 40 systems and acronyms. And like the ideal case is you have one central place that, you know, everything can, can integrate to. So myself would have suffered a company, but we use that I love is Atlassian products like JIRA or Confluence, right? They're kind of an industry standard and Sysher is essentially that industry standard, but for laboratories, for safety, but also bringing that research site as well, being that hub. Yeah. And I remember when I worked in labs, there would kind of be like one person who knew how to do the thing that might be dangerous. Yeah. And it was difficult sometimes to get the information and then maybe it was like a game of telephone almost. Like maybe they had heard it from the person before them. I mean, so can you kind of talk about how software has helped with that as well? Yeah. It's really its own, it's own, almost its own like small business or company within a larger organization, right? And how do you forget that? How do you, you know, don't forget that? Make sure that manual for that, you know, ancient HPLC that somehow still works, right? You have to have that like old computer from like 98. or something that it's all there. So having one place for it, something that, right, the university or company, right, this is their software. It's not something for free. Right, if you're using free software, then you're the product, right? I think, right, I think we all know that. It's like Gmail and everything now. So having something that is, you know, actually like enterprise quality. So you know, okay, this isn't going anywhere. And the data belongs to us, right? It creates that one place to put that kind of stuff, right? For some of those, for teachers, I would love to see more things about like even videos that people do, right, that they could share within their lab. I mean, to a certain degree, you need that, right, that story telling, right, like oral history aspect with some of these things, or like someone having good hands in the lab. To a certain degree, there's only, there's so much you can document and write down, but as much as possible, right? Giving people a heads up, right? Having that, right, in a place that you can search, right? We see this with like electronic lab notebooks, which is another area that we recently expanded into, right? We've been able to document all this together, right? That's, I think that it's going to help so much, right? Imagine if you've been able to search. (laughs) Search for some of this stuff. I know, or if I had been able to see a video, right? Of someone doing a procedure, when I was in graduate school, there was a procedure that we needed to do where we cleaned these glass microscope cover slips, but we, it was kind of we rotated through doing it. So each of us would probably only do it. I don't know, once a year, once every nine months. So, you know, you really forget a lot in those nine to 12 months. And to be able to watch a five minute video, reminding you how to do it would have changed everything. I remember getting nervous, like those days I had to do it. Like, oh, I hope I remember. But yeah, videos I think would be fantastic. - Yeah, that would make me nervous too, right? Like it's this high stakes thing that, you know, you do someone frequently, probably forget, you know, I think I would forget how to do it each time. - Right. - Yeah, I've made myself videos for my house about how to like change their air filter and our HVAC. 'Cause I'm so sure that every three months, but I'm like, I know I won't remember this. - Yes. - We got a document it, documented somehow. - Yeah, yeah, that's, I mean, ideally, right? When I think about to put on my like user experience hat, right, like UX is this aspect that most people associate with software about like making something easy to use, right? To not just use the, you know, the, the jargon there. I feel like that applies to everything, right? So in a perfect world, I'd love to see that process applied even like in the lab, right? For all those procedures where maybe there was like printed SOP, right? And maybe things are labeled a certain way. - Yeah. - I think that's the dream, right? Have that all together and the online aspect and just make everyone comfortable. - So in addition to software being something newer that is changing and will continue to change safety management, there's been a broader cultural change around lab safety. So can we talk a bit about that? - Yes. This is one that I've seen this change, you know, I'd say like over the years since I was, I was in the lab. And this is one where I'll speak more for academia 'cause I was an in and industry lab. So I don't, I don't know that side, you know, firsthand just through our customers and through friends, right? Talking with that. But you just definitely used to be, used to be a profession that I think was something that folks kind of fell into more than aspired to. Which when I think is, you know, sad that it's not, it wasn't appreciated as much. And also sad about how this really shifted. And this was with the death of Sherry Sanji. This was in, I think it was 2008. It was like early mid 2000s. When she, you know, she was working in a lab at UCLA. She was using, you know, Tert butyl lithium, which is a pyrophoric chemical, meaning right when it touches air, it catches fire. And she wasn't properly trained in the lab. She wasn't wearing a lab coat, right, as part of this, right? And everything with, with like analyzing incidents, you can't blame one person for it, right? That's not how things work, right? You need to have a process. I know one should die in the lab. I think that's, you know, everyone agrees on about that. And this was shocking, right? This is very unusual. And doing research scale chemistry, right? It's not a factor is in the United States. Right, it was in California of all places, right? California has like the strictest worker protections, right there, they're really a leader in the country among the states on this. And she died, right? And this was a turning point. There was a legal case against the PI. I, you know, like seeing like, oh, should he legally be responsible? On the legal side, or she was an employee, not a student, technically in the lab. So, right, all the, the laws were involved on this. And I think before this, there was certainly this attitude, like I remember I was doing research in, at a lab at UW at the time I was in undergrad. And I remember the grad students talking about this. And there is definitely this kind of play of like, well, like, was this the PI's fault? Was this maybe her fault? Like, what happened, right? Like, and the idea that a PI would be responsible for something in the lab, right? You know, after a certain point, the PI's leave the lab, right? That's right. So this was a big explicit shift in saying, hey, actually the PI is responsible for what happens in the lab. And not just in terms of the research output, but in terms of what, you know, the, the wellbeing of, of the people in there, right? Students or staff? Yeah. And yeah, this was, I think this was a major change. That's a huge shift going from the PI being in charge, sort of responsible for the research and the papers and the grants to now also the buck stops with the PI in terms of safety and related issues in the lab. Yeah, it is. And I don't mean this is say like, oh, it's not like PI's didn't care before, right? Like, of course they cared, right? Like, sure. This is people, but it, I think kind of forced a level of sort of almost like professionalism, right? And into, especially into academia. And we then saw that with this, I've seen a shift with EHS, right? Formerly this was a role that was really, almost like facilities focused, right? Like about keeping the fume hoods going and then it turned into hazardous waste management and then as laws changed over the years, there were just more and more regulations on chemical usage and all that. So we've seen actually, I've seen now, right, more of our customers in EHS, they actually come from science backgrounds. And that's exciting for me to see. So like, okay, I think this is something went right in terms of how we were bringing up our scientists, so to speak. And they're saying, okay, we're gonna choose careers in, in EHS, we see folks with PhDs in EHS, which again, I think was not that common, right? Like 15 or 20 years ago. And I love seeing it, right? This is, it matters. I think it helps having some folks on the EHS team who have that research background, right? Bringing, really bringing that sympathy and understanding saying, like, hey, I know you wanna do this science, but here's the reasons we can't do it exactly that way. But why do we work together and figure out a way to do it? A little bit differently, that's a lot safer. - Yeah. I think that is such a positive change to come out of that horrible tragedy. The magazine Chemical and Engineering News had a whole series of articles 10 years after this accident on safety. And it was various PIs writing in to talk about things that they were then inspired to do. So, one group did an annual safety day where they talk about a lot of these things. Another group just reviewed all their protocols, but like it clearly, this particular tragedy clearly had a huge impact. It did, I remember I used that same chemical then in graduate school. - Oh my gosh. - I was terrified, right? Like, I don't like hot things. I'm fine with chemicals, like acids, toxic things, like sure. Like fire, I'm like, ooh, I didn't know about that. And my PI actually directly, my hands on walked me through it the first time that we did that. Yes. And it was one of those like Saturdays in the lab, starting the morning, there to like 10 PM, 'cause you know, the first time you run a reaction, you never know. - Yeah. - I remember I was like, I was so scared. - Mm-hmm. - But I had, you know, I got to benefit from the change here, right? Like I saw, you know, I was trained on this. I had someone very experienced right next to me at the hood, right the first few times I did this, went through instructions about, okay, here. So we used the can a lot of things like, you know, using a certain type of syringe. I had a flame resistant lab coat, right, which was provided to me, right, by the university. These were readily available. Anyone in needed one could easily get one. So we've seen, you know, a lot of changes. And I'd say, right, we also did a lot of different experiments before figuring out, okay, this is, this is the only way the chemistry was gonna work, right? So it's also kind of a, you know, less resort before turning to something that dangerous. - So I don't think any high school or advanced middle school students will be using the pyroforex. Is that my pronouncing that correctly? - Yeah, yeah, you've got a pyroforex. - But, you know, I think that there are some general categories of knowledge that are important for high school teachers to know as well as the students. Probably in every school, one of the high school science teachers or the middle school science teachers is the person who is in charge of the chemical inventory, you know, going through the safety certification. So I'd love to talk about that more. And I'd love to kick it off with a question that comes from a sixth grader from Cockiesville Middle School in Baltimore County. So this sixth grader is part of a class that just had their safety set of activities. And the sixth grader asked, why can't we just mix chemicals together and see what happens? And I love this question because I think it really gets at, you know, how do we store things correctly? You, if things were to fall off a shelf, there are certain things you don't want next to other things. So can you talk a little bit about that Serena sort of chemical storage and thinking about, you know, why you wouldn't want chemicals just mixing together? - Absolutely. And first I want to say, I'd love the student's curiosity, right? That's like, that's the best, right? Just being about like, well, why can't we just mix everything together? - Right. - You know, so first of all, you know, I love that. So the main reason we can't mix everything together is that some chemicals, and I want to explain this while using this and I says, "Planet of terms is possible." Some chemicals, you mix them together, they're gonna form something that sometimes will literally blow up. It could actually be what we consider an explosive compound. It could be chemicals that when they mix together, it produces a lot of heat. And that could cause something that's friable to then catch fire. Basically, we don't want to mix just mixing together without knowing some idea what could happen because it could go boom, right? That's the end of the day. I'd say as, you know, when you get into true science, there are ways to do this type of, maybe more as a metaphor, this type of experiment, right? If you really don't know what's gonna happen, like you've done all the research and you're still not sure, there are safer ways to do this in a controlled environment, like using like teeny tiny amounts, using it in a, you know, atmosphere controlled environment, you can't have a fire if there's no oxygen, things like that. So definitely when you get to the higher levels, right? You know, for the student, if you wanna go into science, you can totally get into a place where at a certain degree, you can, you know, mix anything you want. But yeah, let's talk about, is this a good time for you to segue into, yeah, how do we store stuff, right? So I know for, right, for the high school chemistry teachers or, you know, science teachers in middle school here, they sometimes inherit kind of a mess, right? 'Cause, you know, like 50 years ago, there was a little bit less strict about what chemicals you could buy or you look at some of those, right, like 1970s, 1950s chemistry kids are like, oh, (laughs) I know, right. Right. And they already have a full teaching though, right? Teaching is not exactly one of these relaxed, relaxed professions. And I'd say for them, right, one great place to start is looking up, okay, what are the groups of chemicals that can be stored together safely or not? So this is something, yeah, if you Google, there's a great resource that Stanford University has. It's about, it's called Chemical Storage Groups. It's been adopted into the prudent practices and the prudent practices in the laboratory handbook, which is also publicly available, if you Google that one, I think it's on an NIH site. - Great. - And I'll link to those in the notes of the podcast. - Yeah, that'd be great. And this is, I mean, this is something we have in the software, I build KEMTRACER, which is originally from Stanford, but even for folks that aren't using the software, right? This, there's free resources online about these storage groups about what things can be, be stored together, list of common chemicals that are in these storage groups. And if you sort things into bins, right, they don't have to be in totally different cabinets. You can have just in a like spill-controlled bin, something that's like a non-reactive plastic. And it just adds that extra layer of, okay, if someone somehow, if a student got into this cabinet and knocks stuff down, we have some insurance policy to keep things from mixing in ways we don't want. It's another, you know, you have some chemicals when they mix, it might produce like a toxic gas, right? Another, I think we don't want to happen right back to, why don't we just, you know, why don't we just try mixing things together? So we have some of those, you know, those general guidelines that are just make it a little bit easier to make things a little bit safer. - Yeah, Serena, can you off the top of your head give us an example of perhaps two specific chemicals that should not be mixed? - Oh, yes. Let's see. So, I mean, I'm gonna give a household example. - Oh, that's correct. - That's forever and not. I know folks may have heard about like bleach and ammonia. If you mix these together, it forms a toxic gas. I'm sure some people have done this by accident and probably smelled something that does not, right? It's like, does not smell good together. - Right. - And I'd say in the laboratory, we find cases with nitric acid with, right? It's an oxidizer, so it's a lot of things that will react with that folks may not expect because it doesn't behave like the other, similarly like strong or mineral acids. So that's another one of those, right? Those who's conscious there. - Well, that's very helpful because I'm sure bleach and ammonia are found in a lot of people's cleaning supplies and probably wouldn't be a terrible idea to even separate them. - Yes. - In the cleaning, in the areas where people keep cleaning supplies. - Absolutely, right under the sink. It's like the lab at home, yes. - The other thing I was thinking regarding high school, middle school, even early college, I was thinking about dry ice because my son did a second grade project last year and he wanted to use dry ice. It was like a, he created a model of Neptune. They had to create a model of planet and he wanted to create this like feeling of swirling gas. So we found a place in Baltimore to get dry ice and we brought it in. And you know, my husband and I are both former practicing scientists. So I felt very confident that we knew, you know, what needed to happen. Like the classroom needed to have some windows open. We wanted to make sure everything was well ventilated. We didn't want any of the children picking up a piece of dry ice. Like I knew that this couldn't devolve into a situation with a bunch of eight year olds playing with dry ice. Dry ice could not go into any sealed container. But I think it's, you know, just worth, that's probably like one of the most common, like, ooh wow things that could be in a high school classroom. And it's super interesting and cool. And also there are some serious risks of suffocation of an explosion. So, you know, just always people need to be super careful with, while also having fun with dry ice. Right, 'cause dry ice, it's so cool, right? And even once you know what it's doing, it just feels like magic. I felt all those things you mentioned, right? Like in the car, right? - Yes, well, like in the car, the classroom. - And the weather was nice for this. I mean, yes, and we went and got it the day before. We kept it in a, we kept the garage. We made sure the garage was ventilated. We had the windows of the car, but you know, the weather was nice for this. So, but I wouldn't do such a project in, you know, February in a place that has a serious winter. Yeah. - No, no, neither ventilation. - Yeah. - And the pressure changes, right? You know, temperature changes on a closed system was what was, you know, jolting to me in graduate school. It's not obvious. right for for kids about what can happen with that? Yes, that's a great point. But I do remember putting dry ice in a glove at one point to make a balloon. But for train professionals only, perhaps. Yes, no one should do that at home. You do not do that at home. Do that, could it like a local science demonstration? Yeah, I think that's actually probably the best way to see some of this as a local science demonstration. You know, I feel like so many universities will have like a science day where they have people who, you know, really know how to use this stuff. So, you know, do you think there will continue to be opportunities for people with science backgrounds and safety related jobs? And, you know, we have, and the second part of this question is we have listeners who might be at a point where they'll soon be making a career decision. How would someone know if this might be for them going into this field? I'd say the number one thing with this field is being comfortable talking with people, right? You don't have to be an extrovert to be an EHS, but when I think about, okay, the most successful EHS departments I see, they're really willing to talk with and understand all the folks in the labs, right? Not just saying, oh, this is just the way it is, right? They're kind of my way of the highway, but those would, I can sort of like, what you hear about is soft skills. I think play is a strong, a strong place in, in EHS shops. So that's the first thing. The second one is, you know, willingness to have attention to detail and really dig into, you know, like reading regulations. That hurts hard, right? I've, I've read a lot of these regulations. They are dry, but I think for most EHS jobs, started some for another, you're going to have to read some regulations, you're going to have to dig into it. But then the fun part would be talking with colleagues, going to conferences, right? Things like that. One resource that some students might be interested in, there's an organization for campus safety professionals. It's called Shima, and I'll look at you the links. You could put that in the show now. Sure. What is, what is, what is Shima stand for? Campus safety, health, environment, management, association. Okay. And I think I have that one right. And they're focused on, on EHS for universities and colleges. And I know in the past, they've had some areas that like one other look, one of their, either local or national conferences for even bringing like undergraduate students. And it's, it's just a great organization. That sounds fantastic. It also makes me think there's a whole aspect of this that we didn't focus on today, but I'm sure would be interesting for students to think about is just the whole sustainability piece. More of the environmental side, you know, of how, how you dispose of chemicals in a responsible way. This one is a hard problem. Yeah. This is a hard problem. And I know with, you know, the current administration, right, things about sustainability and even about a lot of safety regulations, maybe a little bit up in the air right now. But you know, at the end of the day, there's a lot of the stuff in, especially chemical labs, right? Like these things say, it's not great. And when you get rid of it, usually it's just burned. So I think I love seeing, right? If that's something someone's interested in, there's research being not about this, right? You can go into the science and do research about, you know, like green or alternatives to solvents. Maybe ways for I've seen some cases about ways like reuse solvents, right? Like harvest and reuse, especially some of these, maybe like less desirable solvents, ones that are halogenated, for example. So that's another area. And I know we've talked a lot about chemistry, but maybe like an unexpected area for this would actually be if there's anyone interested going into traits, right? If maybe if some listeners, maybe their students, they're finding, hey, I don't want to go to college, right? HVAC actually relates a lot to sustainability in science. That's super interesting. Right? Like, um, figuring out, okay, how do we get all the air moving? How do we keep everyone safe without using huge amounts of energy to condition the air for these labs? Right? Because when you wear the personal protective equipment, the PPE, right? These lab coats and the classes and everything. And the long pants, right? No matter the temperature outside, it gets hot. Yes. So I'd say that's another area for, you know, if there's someone interested in that, and this is something that I think they might have a passion about, but they're not sure if they want to go to college, right? There's other other related careers here that come to mind, and that's, you know, that's the top one. That's really interesting to hear. Well, I think this sort of flows from that question, but so just as we kind of get toward the end, what is your advice for high school students who are interested in science? Oh, I'd say just learn as much as you can right now. That's a right figure out, like, okay, if all the different disciplines don't get locked in on one just yet, right? If you can learn even a little bit about biology and physics and chemistry once you get to college or even starting some of that in high school, right? That goes a long way. I know I remember that it's not science unless you write it down. So that's just a good place to start when thinking about science here, but I'd say start, you know, building on that interest and then building your skills in terms of writing and communication. This goes a long way when you think about getting grant funding in the future or other crews you might want to do with science. And then I'd say like starting to learn current technologies, right? Like right now there's a lot of buzz about AI. I think there's going to be a lot of development we're going to see on that, but just being open-minded to you know, learning whatever like the technology do shores today, because a lot of science these days, right? It's about data analytics. So making sure, you know, as soon as possible, take a statistics course, now whether that's in high school or later and it will serve you, you know, no matter what kind of science or not, right? You want to do in the future there, right? That's a wonderful advice. Well, Serena, thank you so much for coming on the show. Is there anything else we need to touch on or that we maybe missed? I don't think so. No, I don't think so. I'm excited about the next generation. Oh, that's so great to hear. Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot they're going to bring. I have nieces and nephews who are coming into teenage or years right now and it's just amazing, amazing to see. Yeah, oh, that's so great. Well, thanks so much. That was Serena Short's Hines, talking with us about lab safety and how software helps labs become safer, but also just overall better places to do science. She also gave some great tips regarding safe chemical/home cleaning product storage. Listeners, please consider filling out a survey so we can continue to bring you great content. You can find a link to the survey in the show notes of this podcast and you can also find it on the Instagram page, the account is @sciencefairpodcast. Thank you for tuning in to today's episode of Science Fair. Please rate and review the episode on the podcast app of your choice. See you next time.