Presidential Safety Award from Radiological and Environmental Management presented to three winners

Each year, Radiological and Environmental Management (REM) presents the Presidential Safety Award to individuals or groups who significantly improved safety efforts at Purdue. This year’s award was presented to Matthew Swabey, Bill Schoenlein and Shaneka Lawson. 

Matthew Swabey

Swabey has been a key member of the College of Engineering Safety Committee for five years. Swabey’s expertise has been critical for the safe disposal of batteries on campus. As director of the Bechtel Innovation Design Center (BIDC) since the center’s opening in 2016, Swabey has created a model safety culture at BIDC. His innovative use of tools like Passport Badges to provide training for all center users demonstrates his ability to find tools to solve problems. 

Bill Schoenlein

Schoenlein is working as a preclinical studies manager in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering and serves as BME's safety committee chair, building safety coordinator, contact for the Integrated Safety Plan and a member of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. In each of these roles, there is a safety component of his responsibilities to ensure that facilities are hazard-free and people have a safe working environment. At any given time, Schoenlein is the principal investigator on more than 25 active research protocols, supervises a team of veterinary/animal technicians and provides standard operating procedures on a variety of tasks that ensure important research is conducted in a safe and consistent manner.

Shaneka Lawson

In 2015, Lawson took over management of Pfendler Hall of Agriculture 258, formerly a tissue culture lab, and now acts as a genomics, physiology and plant pathology research lab. Lawson organized the space, updated the laboratory’s safety plans, generated an accurate chemical inventory and downloaded and printed the newest safety data sheets for each chemical. She performs weekly chores to keep the space running smoothly. Lawson also serves as an active participant on the U.S. Forest Service and Purdue Forest and Natural Resources safety committees and handles all lab-related concerns such as inspections and maintenance while performing her role as a primary investigator in FNR and for the USDA. 

REM is part of the Administrative Operations organization. The organization supports the university through safe, reliable and transformative services. Recognizing and advancing safety efforts is just one of the many ways the organization helps power Purdue.

More information about the Presidential Safety Award, including the nomination process and photos of the winners, is available on the REM website.