A Scientist Helps Workers Stay Safe
Firefighters, nail salon technicians and water treatment plant employees are among the workers impacted by Nellie Brown, director of Workplace Health and Safety Programs for ILR’s Worker Institute.
A certified industrial hygienist, biologist and chemist based in Buffalo, Brown logs about 20,000 miles yearly as she drives across New York state to lead safety workshops in the public and private sectors.
Germain Harnden, executive director of the Western New York Council on Occupational Safety and Health, known as WNYCOSH, said the organization relies on Brown “to address difficult and technical questions about chemical exposures and other hazards workers face every day.”
“Nellie’s commitment to help reduce and prevent injury and illness caused by unsafe exposures to workplace hazards, inform workers of their rights in the workplace and deliver programs that create better working conditions for both labor and management remains the same.”
Harnden credits Brown with helping WNYCOSH implement air quality improvement programs in more than 100 schools in 25 districts that “contributed to a safer work and learning environment for thousands of school teachers, staff, administrators and students.”
Brown’s trainings through WNYCOSH reach about 3,000 workers statewide, Harnden said. “Over the years, we’ve heard back from many of those workers and employers about how her training and industrial hygiene work has resulted in improved work practices.”
We have enhanced our ability to advocate for better working conditions for all workers … and have increased our opportunities together to reach out to new vulnerable, low-wage worker populations. This would never have happened without the important work of Nellie Brown and the Workplace Health and Safety Program at Cornell.”
Jim Gutowski, training development specialist for Bureau Veritas, a global consumer products testing company with a facility in Buffalo that has welcomed Brown’s expertise for nearly a decade, credits Brown’s teaching style for its relevance. “Nellie uses stories and real-world examples, so it’s not just theory.”
Brown’s expertise is a staple at Monroe County Water Authority safety training sessions, said Wendy Freeman, employee safety analyst for the agency. “Nellie is so very knowledgeable about so many different topics.”
Brown, born in Clarksburg, West Virginia, moved to Western New York as a teenager when her father’s job was transferred. She earned degrees in biology and in natural and applied sciences from SUNY Buffalo and SUC Buffalo, and is a prolific writer; her workplace safety articles and manuals on the DigitalCommons@ILR e-library have been downloaded by readers in 185 countries more than 240,000 times.
She is a consultant for Iterate Labs, a startup created by three Cornell Ph.D. alumni whose signature product is the “smart glove,” a sensor-embedded glove that tracks hand and wrist action to reduce repetitive hand use injuries. Other projects include advising a doctoral candidate in the School of Human Ecology who is developing clothing to protect workers from heat stress.
“The best part of my job is the success stories when people take the information seriously, and actually implement the solutions,” Brown said. “When I’ve been able to change work practices, and solve the mysteries and puzzles of work hazards, these are the real joys.”