91ÁÔÆæ

Environmental Health & Safety’s Program Manager Casi Contreras and Safety Specialist Xia Yang represented EHS at the 2025 Partners in Academic Laboratory Safety (PALS) Workshop hosted by ExxonMobil in Houston, Texas in July. 
 
The PALS initiative continues to build partnerships between academia and industry by promoting a proactive culture of safety, improving awareness of individual responsibility, and sharing best practices across institutions. The 2025 workshop brought together university and industry leaders to engage in immersive safety discussions, campus lab tours, and collaborative planning sessions aimed at strengthening academic laboratory safety programs. 
 
Participants visited ExxonMobil’s Spring Campus and Baytown Technology & Engineering Complex (BTEC) facilities, where they explored state-of-the-art labs and discussed topics such as Field Operational Safety Leadership (FoSL), incident investigation, and the development of safety training resources. Lab tours were led by ExxonMobil safety and technical experts and served as a platform to exchange strategies on engineering controls, hazard assessments, and safety culture. 
 
A highlight of the workshop included breakout sessions for university representatives to consolidate insights and refine their plans for implementing a Joint University Safety Certificate Program. The event concluded with a panel discussion featuring early-career BTEC researchers who shared reflections on their safety journeys and career development. 
This year’s attendees included representatives from the 91ÁÔÆæ, Texas A&M University, and University of Texas at Austin, Georgia Tech, University of Florida, and Washington University in St. Louis.