Bassam H. Atieh, Sc.D.,
M.B.A.
Professional
Industrial Hygiene Experience
My industrial hygiene experience
at Kuwait Oil
Company (KOC) varied from supervising pest control
operations to
recognizing, evaluating and controlling problems arising in and from the
refinery.
A major part of
my work was to ensure that the employees as well as the community
were not exposed
to harmful levels of physical and chemical agents. I
was
also responsible for providing workers with
personal
protective equipment when needed. This included hearing protection, eye
and face protection,
protective
clothing, and respiratory protective devices. Part of my duties were
also to monitor potential
harmful sources
such as gas leaks,
noise, vibration and excess heat. Other activities included fire
fighting
training programs, on-site first aid courses, injury prevention seminars,
and creating buddy systems
(team response) in case of emergencies.
My experience with ventilation systems is adequate
but limited. As work experience, my involvement
with ventilation
systems
has
been periodic checks and testing air flows, pressures and pressure
drops, and
evaluating exhaust systems. I have been also involved
with more specific principles of ventilation such as
dilution ventilation, fans and
hood design, balancing systems, and air cleaning devices.
Most of of my work
with ventilation systems has been mainly in laboratory settings under
controlled conditions.
Most of my industrial hygiene exposure and experience was accomplished during
my four years at Tulane
University. My research
dissertation was on the "Deposition of Man-Made Mineral Fibers (Ceramic
Fibers)
in the Lungs of Guinea Pigs". During this time,
I was involved
with a wide range of experiments. A major
part of
my research was directly related to industrial hygiene and supporting fields.
The last two years
of my residency
at Tulane, the experimentation period, my training focused on calibration of
instruments,
characterization of the
inhalation chamber, measuring and calculating different dust concentrations,
and
aerosol science.
Currently, I am a Professor
of Industrial
Hygiene in the Department of Occupational Safety and Health at
Murray
State University. My major assignments are academic; the courses that I
teach are industrial hygiene
courses such as: physical agents, air
sampling strategies
and analysis, industrial hygiene, and biostatistics.
Other assignments
and duties are departmental, collegiate
and university related. Part of my summers are
normally spent
teaching summer courses and consulting. University related industrial hygiene consultations
include the Chemical Hazard
and
Consequence Assessment Projects for the Paducah, Kentucky and the
Portsmouth,
Ohio Gaseous Diffusion Plants. As a member of an MSU expert team, I was
the industrial hygienist
responsible for
the
chemical hazard assessment
for the Martin-Marietta Energy Systems Inc. in Paducah,
Kentucky, 1991
& 1994, and Portsmouth,
Ohio, 1995. I, also, have been consulting local
and regional industry
on noise and other industrial hygiene issues
since
1991.
Other activities include consultant and
editor
for the National Safety Council on academic related issues, and
peer
review
consultant for NIH and the United States Public Health Service.
Beside my academic activities I am very
interested
in designing and conducting short courses in occupational
health and/or
industrial hygiene for non-academic institutions and businesses. My
primary
interests include:
assessment, management and control
of physical agents
such as (noise, non-ionizing & ionizing radiation,
heat stress, and
vibration). Other interests are sampling
analysis, and development of comprehensive
industrial
hygiene and safety programs.