Recent reports show that in any given year millions of workers suffer workplace injuries. Studies also say a lack of sufficient training is one of the leading causes of workplace injuries.
With laboratories across the United States employing over 500,000, innovative researchers like Alexis Brown, Ph.D. are working to develop solutions to help labs practice safe science, maintain safe working environments, and save lives.
While working on a Ph.D. in Environmental Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Brown also recognized that engaging the Millennial lab worker requires digital delivery, as they find training via PowerPoint presentations inefficient.
Brown's thesis designed training protocols to collect environmental water, manure, surface, feces, and air samples on North Carolina hog farms for microbial analysis to support claims in legal proceedings. She also implemented protocols to train four principal investigators (PIs).
Since she joined Booz Allen Hamilton, Brown has leveraged her expertise in epidemiology, bioinformatics, and data analytics to develop solutions that promote workplace health and safety.
As a consultant on the civil health team at Booz Allen, Brown has supported the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Office of Laboratory Safety to develop a standardized environmental and occupational safety and health safety training program.
She leads the development of training courses, safety training communications and engages with FDA stakeholders to keep employees safe every day.
In addition, Brown co-led efforts, a self-administered hazard identification questionnaire, to capture new emergency workplace hazards, improve user experience, and identify apparent alignments between risks and training courses. The training program was nominated for Workforce magazine's Optimas awards.
Recently, Brown was a Women of Color magazine Technology Rising Star award nominee. She was honored for her efforts in revolutionizing laboratory safety training to maintain regulatory compliance and keep employees safe.
Click here to nominate an outstanding scientist for a 2021 Women of Color STEM Award.
