The IChemE prizes recognise exceptional contributions to the fields of chemical, biochemical and process engineering. This year we have achieved success in two categories: The Warner Medal (awarded to Dr Fanran Meng) for work in sustainability and the SIESO Medal for raising awareness of process safety.
MSc students Asma Al Farsi, Asma Al Badri, and Danah Allihyani were awarded the SIESO Medal. The SIESO Medal is a competition that seeks to raise awareness of process safety among science, business, and engineering students. It is awarded annually to an individual or team of students (up to a maximum of six members) for the best presentation of a major accident and the learning outcomes.
The students submitted a paper along with a novel method of communicating the lessons from the incident - an Arabic language podcast.
MSc Student Asma Al Farsi said "In 2019, a major explosion at the TPC chemical plant in Port Neches occurred due to overlooked safety hazards, such as dangerous chemical buildup in unused pipes. The paper explains what went wrong and how it could have been prevented from a process safety perspective. Alongside this, we created a short Arabic-language podcast to help Arabic speakers easily engage with these critical safety topics, which currently lack accessible resources in the language."
Asma Al Badri, MSc student added “Winning the IChemE SIESO Medal is a great honour for us and a reminder that process safety must be communicated in accessible and impactful ways. We are especially proud that our collaborative work helped highlight overlooked hazards and promote awareness within our community.”
Professor Fiona Macleod who teaches on the Process Safety and Loss Prevention MSc said “I encouraged all the students on the course to apply for this medal and was delighted to hear that one group had put in a submission, although it meant I had to step away from the judging panel this year! The students came up with a wonderfully creative way of engaging a new audience, which is exactly what this competition aims to achieve."
