Bringing Safety and Academia Together

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Dr. Laura Maguire, a research scientist at The Ohio State University, who started her career in industry, working in a variety of roles in high-risk, high-consequence domains.

Why are safety professionals and academic researchers not working together more closely to enhance workplace safety?

Using her experience from both sides of this divide, Laura shares her vision of greater collaboration between the safety profession and academia. She explains how partnering with a research lab brings field-based insight into the realities of everyday work, and how to ensure a study’s findings are relevant to the context where they will be applied.

Laura explores the importance of human cognition when interpreting risk and calls for greater coordination across industries to make workplaces safer.

This insightful conversation gives EHS professionals clear guidance on merging safety theory with practice to build resilience and develop adaptive decision-making.