ACS Undergraduate Award for Excellence in Chemical Safety and Ethics
We are thrilled to introduce the second annual ACS Undergraduate Award for Excellence in Chemical Safety and Ethics presented by the ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety, and the ACS Committee on Ethics. This award recognizes senior undergraduates who have exemplified the crucial link between chemical safety and ethical conduct.
Congratulations to the 2024 awardees! Read the full annoouncment with names at this link.
A call for nominations for the third annual ACS Undergraduate Award for Excellence in Chemical Safety and Ethics will be posted in winter 2025.
Congratulations to the 2023 Student Award Winners who have actively demonstrated the connection between chemical safety and ethics through behavior and schoolwork.
ChemLuminary Award
The Committee on Ethics’ ChemLuminary Award recognizes outstanding programming by a local section related to the promotion of ethics in chemistry.
ChemLuminary Award Recipients:
2024: Chemical Society of Washington
The Chemical Society of Washington (CSW) hosted its hybrid dinner event on cybersecurity with a tailored examination of the chemical enterprise, the potential catastrophic impacts to the intellectual property and physical safety of chemical manufacturing, and the risks posed to academic labs for data theft and phishing schemes. The award was presented to CSW with the support of Committee on Ethics members, Kristina G. Proctor and Pei Meng Woi.
2023: Chemical Society of Washington
The Chemical Society of Washington (CSW) led a virtual seminar and discussion entitled “Chemical Commercialization: What to Know about Federal Regulations” (link to the recording) with invited speakers and addressed the federal regulations at issue in chemical commercialization from R&D to commercial sales. The developed content is relevant to the ethics theme and provides other sections a template of educational awareness of EPA laws, regulation for the use of chemicals from R&D to the commercialization. It is a well-organized event that brings awareness of the EPA laws TSCA and FIFRA, and thus facilitates right decision-making from R&D to the commercialization of chemicals.
2020: Chemical Society of Washington
The Chemical Society of Washington led an inclusive process to develop a local-section-specific Conduct Policy (link to the policy) for CSW membership and events. The goal was to provide additional clarity about what is expected of CSW members’ professional behavior, especially at CSW events, and to ensure that all members, guests, and public participants in CSW events felt safe and included. Throughout the drafting and development process, the leaders of this policy effort spent a lot of time ensuring that as broad and diverse a group of members as possible were consulted.
2020: Midland Local Section
The Midland Local Section put on a public museum exhibit celebrating its Centennial Anniversary. One installation was on Unintended Consequences (UC), which addressed how ethics and environmental responsibility remain essential parts of ACS and the field. This installation prominently displayed the ACS code of conduct, stating the responsibilities of chemical professionals, and acknowledged several innovations that originated in Midland and had unintended consequences, including the silicone breast implant controversy, dioxin, and agent orange.
2019: Silicon Valley Local Section
The Silicon Valley Local Section brought six performances of “No Belles”, stories about female scientists who have and have not received the Nobel Prize, to over 1,000 attendees on four local college campuses, thus raising awareness both of the unethical behaviors that result in the current gender imbalance in STEM fields and of the achievements of women who have persevered.