Health and Safety Advisors move into Occupational Hygiene with help from the BOHS Postgraduate Bursary Award

We are delighted to announce the latest beneficiaries of our postgraduate bursary programme and extend congratulations to the two successful candidates: Emma Forbes, studying for an MSc in Occupational Hygiene at the University of Greenwich, and Paul Ramsden, studying for an MSc in Occupational Health at the University of Birmingham. This brings to 18 the total number of bursaries, each covering one year's tuition fee, that have been awarded by BOHS since the launch of the scheme, all to students who would otherwise have had to fund themselves entirely.  

Emma Forbes is a qualified Health and Safety Advisor and worked for nine years with Scottish Borders Council in a variety of roles, before moving very recently to Swire Oilfield Services in Aberdeen, to start a new job as an HSEQ Advisor. She completed her PgC in Occupational Safety and Risk Management in 2009, which although challenging, she found lacked depth in the area of health. Emma, who was already a Student member of BOHS, says that her interest has been sparked in occupational hygiene “as there is scope to be creative when developing policies, procedures or risk control measures, which also encroach into design and engineering aspects of industry”. She now anticipates her career progressing primarily towards occupational hygiene and is already undertaking unpaid work experience with a consultancy to grasp the practical application of hygiene.

Paul Ramsden is a self-employed Health and Safety Consultant, with a varied career history - covering such diverse areas as industrial roped access and guiding scientists in the Antarctic -before he moved into workplace health and safety. He has a BSc (Hons) in Environmental Science from the University of Sheffield, and is a Chartered Member of IOSH, for whom he is a professional development lecturer. Paul is delighted to have been awarded this bursary, and believes successful completion of this MSc will enable him “to provide much needed technical occupational hygiene expertise … [and] to promote the occupational hygiene profession with organisations such as IOSH.” This is a full-time, one year course, and therefore a major commitment.

BOHS’s postgraduate bursary scheme is for students wanting to gain a higher education qualification in Occupational Hygiene, with up to five bursaries awarded every year, each of up to £4,000 towards the payment of academic fees.