Brenna Woolery

I grew up in a farming family, and my grandma passed away from what I believe to be an occupational illness. That experience led me to want to go into occupational safety and making sure that what my family had to experience doesn't have to happen to everybody else. I've been in this field for about 8 years now, and all around, I'm just trying to make sure that people make it home safe at the end of the day from their shift. I do research into marginalized populations and what their risk is by industry or just in general. A lot of what I focus on is safety materials for non-English speaking populations, just to make sure that they're getting the education and whatever they need to make sure that they have equal opportunity to a safe workspace. I originally went back to school just thinking I was going to get an associate's degree and just have some sort of education underneath me so I could advance further in the field. But I met amazing friends and mentors along the way who encouraged me to be the change I hope to see, and that really stuck with me. I decided to keep going, and this year I'll graduate with my master's, and then I hope to return for my doctorate. Eventually, I would like to make it up to the policy level so we can make systemic change. I've done some research in the past that shows every state kind of handles safety differently, some better than others, and I think we really need that institutional level change to really make an impact.