On March 11-13 ERC staff and students had the opportunity to attend the 2026 Ohio Safety Congress and Expo in Columbus. This was a great opportunity to connect with the occupational health and safety community and share work happening through the University of Cincinnati Education and Research Center.

Throughout the conference, we hosted an ERC booth where we had the chance to meet many attendees interested in learning more about our programs, continuing education courses, and ongoing research.

The ERC booth also had a microscope demonstration of soapstone and plastic dust filters, which sparked great conversations with attendees about the exposure risks of stone cutting and 3D printing. A big thank you to the volunteers who helped staff the booth throughout the expo event.

Dr. Justin Morrow displaying microscope demo at the ERC booth

In addition to the expo, the conference had many excellent speaker sessions about current topics in safety and health. Within these sessions there were presentations from UC faculty and students. Dr. Justin Morrow presented “Managing Risks of Commercial Desktop 3D Printing” highlighting research conducted in collaboration with Slater Payne, Dr. Jun Wang, and Alyssa Yerkeson. This presentation explored emerging workplace hazards associated with the growing use of 3D printers and how to manage their emissions and exposures

Dr. Justin Morrow presenting his session “Managing Risks of Commercial Desktop 3D Printing”

Justin also presented “Rapid Raman Analysis of Workplace Aerosols” with Shawn Howe, featuring work from Slater Payne and Dr. Jun Wang. This session focused on the exposures associated with engineered stone cutting and the growing need to rapidly quantify and characterize dust and particle exposures in both workplaces and communities, including hazards such as respirable crystalline silica, wildfire smoke, and nanoparticles generated from 3D printing processes. Justin and Shawn reviewed emerging Raman spectroscopy methods developed by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which show promise for improving exposure assessments by significantly reducing laboratory turnaround time compared to existing methods. NIOSH’s dust-collection approach was demonstrated during the presentation, along with a discussion of ongoing efforts to complement the process methods by improving particle capture, analytical reliability, and the overall feasibility of rapid Raman-based aerosol analysis.

In addition to presentations, University of Cincinnati students and researchers showcased two posters during the conference, highlighting ongoing work across health and safety topics. 

University of Cincinnati posters titled “Prototyping of Smart Safety Helmets for Reducing Work-Related Traumatic Brain Injury Due to Falls and Blunt Impacts” and “Development of Real-Time Human Digital Twin for Improving Worker Safety in Manufacturing, Logistics, and Construction”

Overall, OSC 2026 was a valuable experience for learning, networking, and highlighting the work of the ERC.