Environment, Health & Safety

A CONVERSATION WITH MARIA NAPPI

Maria Nappi is a recent arrival to the Lab, heading up the Lab’s Environment, Health and Safety Division (EHS). She comes from Los Alamos National Laboratory where she cut her teeth on Department of Energy rules and contracts as the Radiation Protection Division Leader overseeing significant actinide and research areas using significant quantities of fissile and non-fissile radioactive materials. Before that, Nappi has had more than 40 years of experience in cyclotron operation for radiopharmaceuticals, operational Health Physics, radiation protection, Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing, decommissioning, project management, and waste transportation.

How does Environment, Health & Safety support the Lab’s mission?

Cutting-edge science deserves cutting-edge safety. Our role in Environment, Health & Safety (EHS) is to help scientists and others at the Lab do their work safely. We work in partnership with the scientific community to investigate and discuss alternative solutions so that everything is done with safety in mind.

We need to work within the framework of government regulations, guidelines, and our Department of Energy contract. EHS is not risk-averse. We want to make sure everyone goes home safely at the end of their shift.

What are Environment, Health & Safety’s top priorities today?

The Chemical Management System is a top priority. We have Evelyn Davies spearheading the new chemical management process at the Lab. Currently, we have an outdated process that doesn’t give us all the information we need to identify chemicals that are brought to a Lab site. We need a method that will categorize the chemicals, know where they are, and how they need to be handled. We are quickly moving to a chemical database to make this happen. But we aren’t doing this alone. The project has included the scientific areas, including our user community, Procurement, and Security.

Of course, protection against COVID-19 is the number one priority. We’ve put a good program in place that involves education, testing, and when we have the vaccine, vaccination clinics. We’ve worked hard to provide the maximum protection to those working on site so we can continue to work on our cutting edge science. We want to keep our workforce healthy, safe, and protected.

Who do you partner with at the Lab to be successful?

That depends on the project. When I first arrived at the Lab last year, we had an issue at the 88-inch cyclotron where a beryllium puck was damaged in an experiment. With the damage of the puck, there is a possibility of the release of beryllium in that port. We surveyed that portion of the beam tube that was impacted and put in safety precautions to allow the team to continue to work safely. So there is a lot of partnering with the scientific areas.

We also partner with others in Operations. We are currently working with Facilities on human performance tools to make it more difficult for people to make mistakes. This would include job re-briefs to make sure everyone understands the tasks, the safety steps, and who will perform each step. It also involves training on simple tools such as repeat backs and the use of a phonetic alphabet to ensure you are on the right system or piece of equipment. For example, rather than using letters such as A or B to designate a valve or switch, we use words.

Who from the past, present, or future would you like to job shadow? And why?

Amanda Gorman. She is the young poet who read at the recent inauguration of the president. She is an amazing communicator. She did her research, both historical and contemporary, and presented her work with eloquence. I have even more respect since she had a speech difficulty and used her poetry to improve herself. She had trouble saying her “Rs.” Coming from Boston, I know what that is like, and it is something I’ve worked on myself. Having a speech difference makes you stand out, gives you less self-confidence, and marks you as different. Listening to Ms. Gorman's speak gave me hope for the future.