DSS130: The Advanced Safety Engineering Management Program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham with Crista Vesel, Dr. Ivan Pupulidy, Jeremy George & Wyatt Bradbury

Today’s episode of the Dust Safety Science podcast, four recognized dust explosion safety experts talk about the Advanced Safety Engineering Management Program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. They are:

Crista Vesel, who co-authored the Dust Hazard Learning Review with Dr. Ivan Pupulidy, has always been interested in the ‘how to’ aspects of safety management. She now teaches crisis leadership in the UAB program and has developed a course in the language that will likely be included in the curriculum this fall.
Dr. Ivan Pupulidy, who has developed several courses for the university. They include learning-based response to accidents and incidents, which is part of a Developing Human Factors track in the program.
Jeremy George, who has worked in process safety management for the oil and gas industry for much of his career. He recently moved over to Cargill, where he’s responsible for a lot of its North American combustible dust programs.
Wyatt Bradbury, who works for a company called Hitachi Rail. He serves a number of their larger installation projects on the East Coast and their strategic and governance objectives throughout the Americas. Courses that he teaches include ‘System Safety and Prevention for Design’ and ‘Professional and Engineering Ethics.’

Dr. Pupulidy explained that the program blends traditional methodologies to risk assessment, hazard mitigation and hierarchy of controls with a more modern understanding of how these processes are applied by field personnel.

“Part of the problem with most programs is that they get deeply rooted in the elemental framework – the maths of safety if you will – and they miss the social aspects of safety,” he says. “What we’ve tried to do in this program is elevate the conversation, elevate the program to a point where we’ve moved from a really transactional sort of training thing into a more dialogic sort of understanding place.”

Crista Vesel pointed out that the program is fully online, which makes it accessible to people across the globe.

“Most of the students take about two classes per semester,” she says. “Some of them slow down and some of them speed up. You can work a job and still do this master’s program.”

Exploring the social impact of safety by actually being social.

While there is a lot of written work involved, professors and students work together to discuss the course materials, do peer reviews, and build each other up. There are many people from different industries, all of them with something to share.

“We can learn from each other, and their examples are fantastic,” Crista says.

Wyatt Bradbury pointed out that the ASEM program is a professional degree program that allows students to learn from professionals who deal with engineering safety hazards on a regular basis.

“Certainly, a lot of the writings or projects center around the issues that we have, or the opportunities that we have, or our way to try to synthesize what we’re facing in our organizations, the opportunities that exist,” he says. “We try to create a stronger culture, stronger organizations, safer organizations with what we’re learning in the programs.”

Dr. Pupulidy stated that instead of doing a traditional dissertation or thesis at the end of their program, students complete a capstone project that they can later use in their professions.

Students complete capstone projects that are relevant to their professions.

“We want their capstone projects to be relevant to what they’re doing. We also want them to be passionate about the topic. I’m in charge of the capstone preparations. We do a semester of preparation, and then we do a semester of actually doing the capstone project. These projects are student-oriented and student-driven. I simply coach both content and final project presentation.”

The program starts with a system safety and prevention through design course that shows how system safety is not a bunch of stand-alone programs in silos, but rather integrated systems that work together. From there, students progress to courses in risk management. Then they advance to the specialized courses that Ivan Pupulidy and Crista Vesel teach.

One course taught by program leader Dr. Donald Burke, who has a background in accident investigations, looks at accident causation from the technical standpoint. Students start looking at new perspectives and evaluating a workplace accident from a physics standpoint.

Jeremy George confirmed that these types of courses have made him a “higher-order thinker” in his regular job.

“Combustible dust is a complex subject. There really is a need for higher-order thinking about how to best approach that particular subject area in our industry. I would encourage people to really look into the program as a way of engaging their mind, and maybe coming out on the graduation end of that as a person better prepared to help their organization get through some of those challenges.”

Crista Vesel agreed that the ASEM program brings a unique and valuable approach to process safety.

“A lot of safety programs are the same. They teach you that you can manage risk, and they teach a lot of old-school techniques that have really been outdated over the last several decades. This course helps bring in some of that new knowledge and those new questions. We try to encourage the students to ask powerful questions, because that’s when you step into a place that you don’t know, and you can actually learn something. And so we get them more comfortable with asking each other questions, asking us questions and actually saying that they don’t know. Then they seem to move forward and really appreciate that perspective.”

Conclusion

Wyatt Bradbury says that the ASEM program demonstrates how much we can all learn from each other.

“Learning is really a journey,” he says. “I think the beauty of this program is that it’s going to help you learn how to think critically, help you maybe find some different approaches you can take to help you along in your journey. Certainly, it’s not a destination where you’re trying to go through and put ticks next to courses simply to just get a degree. You’re going to join a community and really find a love and a passion for learning as you’re going through the program.”

If you would like to discuss further, leave your thoughts in the comments section below. You can also reach course contact Donald S. Burke directly:

Email: [email protected]

If you have questions about the contents of this or any other podcast episode, you can go to our ‘Questions from the Community’ page and submit a text message or video recording. We will then bring someone on to answer these questions in a future episode.