Industrial Hygiene

The PhD part of the IH program follows the required courses of the Department and the Fielding School of Public Health plus those selected in the IH specialization by the student’s Guidance Committee as set out in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences PhD Handbook on student entry.  An IH Academic Senate faculty member must be willing to accept an applicant.

After doing the required and specialization courses, the candidate needs to pass a Written Qualifying Examination, an Oral Qualifying Examination, and then after the research is finished that produces the equivalent of two to three journal papers defends the dissertation.

The PhD required courses, in additon to core required courses, are:

• EHS C200C (6 units, Spring1): Foundations of Environmental Health Sciences
• EHS 296: Research Topics in EHS (2 units, required for each quarter in residence)
• EHS 411: Environmental Health Sciences Seminar: (4 units, Fall-1,2)
• EHS 414A (2 units, Fall1) and EHS 414B (2 units, Spring1): Research Methods and Effective Communication in Environmental Health Sciences
• One full course in epidemiology (4 units or more at the 100 or 200 level)
• Public Health course requirement: Students who have not previously completed a Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH)-accredited degree (bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degree) are required to complete Public Health 201: Fundamentals in Public Health
• SCERC Superfund doctoral students must complete EHS XXX Exposure & Health Effects Associated with Emerging Technologies (4 units) in Year 1, and EHS 258 Identification and Analysis of Hazardous Waste (4 units) in Year 2.

The educational objectives of the UCLA Industrial Hygiene Program are:

• To equip program graduates with the underlying technical and scientific knowledge required for the professional practice of industrial hygiene.
• To equip program graduates with specialized, practical, and experiential knowledge and skills necessary for the professional practice of industrial hygiene.
• To equip program graduates with the communication skills necessary for the professional practice of industrial hygiene.
• To impart to program graduates an appreciation of the need to work as part of an interdisciplinary team addressing occupational health problems.
• To instill in program graduates the understanding that the practice of industrial hygiene involves ongoing learning and self-criticism.

The UCLA Industrial Hygiene Program, led by Dr. Shane Que Hee, Director, and Dr. Tsai, Deputy Director, provides NIOSH traineeships for students intending to pursue careers in industrial hygiene. Support may be in the form of fees and/or stipend. Eligibility for an Industrial Hygiene traineeship is determined primarily by the student’s career objectives.

The NIEHS-funded Southern California Superfund Research Program (SCSRP) is an occupational health and safety education program that focuses on emerging and nano technologies. The SCSRP aims to provide professional training through research experiences, continuing education courses and academic curricula in industrial hygiene and environmental health sciences for graduate students and industrial hygienists in the Southern California region, and to recruit diverse undergraduate and graduate students to join the graduate school pursuing masters and doctoral studies in occupational and environmental health sciences related fields. Led by Dr. Tsai, the multidisciplinary team includes highly diverse faculty members at UCLA, UC Irvine and California State University, Fullerton.

To be eligible you must:

1. Be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident immigrant (green card holder);
2. Have as a career objective the field of industrial hygiene, broadly defined;
3. Take (or waive) all the courses listed in the industrial hygiene model curriculum;
4. Inform the program director of your type of employment for five years after graduation.

Note:

• Stipends are limited to eligible students working less than 50% time in off- and on-campus professional positions.
• Fees are limited to eligible students working less than full time in off-campus professional positions.
• Support for Masters students is typically limited to a maximum of 6 quarters.
• A first-year GPA of 3.0 or better is required for second-year support.
• A minimum of 12 units is required for every quarter in residence.
• The maximum NIOSH support time for a Doctoral student is five years.

Early in Winter Quarter of the 1st year, the IH Director distributes a contact list of potential internship offers based on past history. In the last 5 years, students have done internships with:

• The UCLA Environmental Health & Safety learning about stressor characterization at a major university. Projects included studying ventilation of empty and occupied lecture halls, indoor air quality measurements of aerosols, how ergonomic factors contributed to psychosocial stressors, and measuring formaldehyde exposure in pathology laboratories.
• The UC Irvine Environmental Health & Safety measuring formaldehyde emissions from painted walls.
• The UC Berkeley Medical Center Environmental Health & Safety assessing hazards in the patient clinics.
• The University of California Lawrence Livermore Laboratory evaluating physical hazards like ionizing radiation, noise, and human ergonomic factors.
• The Certified Unified Program Agencies (CUPA) where students measured the exposures to benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX) expected of inspectors of underground storage tanks, and mapped where violations concerning exposure to hazardous materials and hazardous waste occurred relative to socioeconomic status.
• The Tesoro oil refinery relative to workers exposed to volatile organics but with emphasis on benzene.
• A dairy that produced milk, cheese and yogurt relative to workers exposed to stressors.