Occupational Hygiene PhD students conduct research projects that produce a dissertation and manuscripts that are submitted for publication to technical journals. Students may conduct research that is laboratory-based or field-based, or some combination of the two.

The Occupational Hygiene Laboratory occupies 2,500 square feet and is equipped with the latest instrumentation for measuring gasses, vapors, particulate matter, and biological aerosols. Large research apparatuses housed in the laboratory include a walk-in exposure chamber, a wind tunnel, a filter tester, three laboratory hoods, and a biological safety cabinet. The Occupational Hygiene program maintains a wide variety of portable samplers and instruments that can be used to measure exposures to hazards at work sites.

Examples of recent projects

• Respiratory Diseases and Exposures to Taconite Dust Components
• Effects of Spray Surfactant and Particle Charge on Respirable Dust Control
• The Use of Heuristics and Exposure Models in Improving Exposure Judgment Accuracy
• An Assessment of Occupational Inhalation Exposures to Volatile Oil Components on Four Rig Vessels for the GuLF STUDY
• Evaluation of the Utility of Deterministic Models for Dermal Exposure Assessment of Solids and Investigation of the Potential Influence of Repeated Contacts and Skin Hydration on Quantitative Dermal Loading and Transfer