Wang receives second round of funding from Ohio BWC

Jun Wang, PhD, associate professor in the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine Department of Environmental and Public Health Sciences, has received a second round of funding from the Ohio Workforce Safety Innovation Grants. The grants from the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation are awarded to advance worker safety in Ohio.

Wang has received a new FY2024 award of nearly $1.5 million to continue work on his project, “Enhance Performance and Applications of Exposure-Protection Integrated Communicator (EPIC).” This funding follows $1 million in funding for his project titled “Exposure-Protection Integrated Communicator (EPIC) to Improve and Promote PPE Usages in Ohio Workplace” from Ohio Workforce Safety Innovation Grant in FY2023. 

The total investment of $2.5 million from the State of Ohio is to develop a proof-of-concept and prototype of an innovative device called EPIC. The EPIC device is designed to offer real-time insights into a worker’s proximity environment, personal inhalation exposure levels and the protective capabilities of their personal protection equipment.

Featured photo of Jun Wang, PhD. Photo/Colleen Kelley/University of Cincinnati.

The second round of funding enables Wang to add more faculty to the project both within and outside of College of Medicine. UC faculty collaborating with Wang on this project are Yevgen Nazarenko, PhD, assistant professor; Sergey Grinshpun, PhD, professor emeritus; and Wei-Wen Hsu, PhD, associate professor, all in the Department of Environmental and Public Health Sciences; and Tao Li, PhD, Mingming Lu, PhD, and Simone Balachandran, PhD, all in the College of Engineering and Applied Science.

Wang’s project also receives support from industrial partner Tisch Environmental, a UC alumni family-run business specializing in manufacturing and marketing air quality sensors and monitors.