The Joint Safety Team (JST) was conceived in 2012 by the Departments of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and Chemistry at the University of Minnesota and the Dow Chemical Company as a model student-led safety organization. The JST initiative was aimed at improving academic safety through four core areas: compliance, awareness, resources, and education. Since its inception, the JST has taken great strides to develop a culture of peer-led safety at Minnesota. We describe the evolution of the structure of the organization over the last 8 years and the innovative methodologies employed by the JST to educate and evaluate safety in academic laboratories. The continuous efforts of the student members of the JST have enabled the organization to be recognized as a leader in peer-to-peer safety. The Minnesota model of “inform and reform” is now being adopted at other academic institutions to develop safety organizations emulating the JST.

important to note that since most of the represented in 1 is proof-of-concept, acquisition times and power values may differ significantly when these techniques are applied to actual systems of interest. For example, Choi et al. point out that a depletion power of 2 TW cm −2 is incompatible with biological material. However, less efficient depletion will still allow them to see improvements in resolution. 63 The results and simulations discussed here represent promising steps toward this goal and toward offering alternative microscopy options to fluorescence-based methods.

Laboratory safety teams (LSTs), led by graduate student and postdoctoral researchers, have been propagating across the U.S. as a bottom-up approach to improving safety culture in academic research laboratories. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, LSTs relied heavily on in-person projects and events. Additionally, committed Champions from the ranks of safety professionals and faculty were critical to their operation and continued expansion. As was the case for many existing systems, the COVID-19 global crisis served as an operational stress test for LSTs, pushing them to unexpected new limits. The initial spread of COVID-19 brought with it a shutdown of academic institutions followed by a limited reopening that prohibited in-person gatherings and disrupted standard lines of communication upon which LSTs relied. Safety professionals and faculty members were required to take on new duties that were often undefined and time-consuming, substantially impacting their ability to support LSTs. In this case study, we report the impact of this operational stress test on 12 LSTs, detailing the adaptive means by which they survived and highlighting the key lessons learned by the represented LST leaders. The key takeaways were to spend time nurturing relationships with a diverse array of Champions, securing stable funding from multiple sources, and networking with members of LSTs from different institutions to strengthen moral support and broaden ideation for common challenges.

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