Artificial Intelligence for Occupational Safety & Health Professionals

Dr. Houshang Darabi, Professor and Department Head of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Illinois Chicago, and his team have developed and implemented Artificial Intelligence (AI) courses for the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) professionals in collaboration with the GLC-OHS Continuing Education program since 2022.

The effective implementation of AI depends heavily on OSH professionals' ability to understand and use AI in the workplace. These courses aim to build foundational AI literacy and inspire OSH professionals to explore AI’s potential in their work. Various formats and course offerings also align with the five Foundational Content Areas and seven Delivery Principles of AI Literacy outlined in the U.S. Department of Labor’s framework for Artificial Intelligence literacy, a foundation to guide nationwide AI literacy efforts across workforce and education systems.

Courses can be customized to adapt across industries, roles, educational sectors, and other workforce-related contexts. Certificates included.

Current formats include:

Half-Day Workshop:

We host in-person and virtual half-day AI in OSH Workshops for work groups, professional associations, and student groups. Certificates included. This Workshop can be customized per industry sector, per trainee’s company, or per occupational hazard. Students can expect to learn what an AI system is, find an overview of when AI might be helpful, how AI projects are done and what AI system types are.

Learning Objectives:

  • Introduction to building blocks of modern AI, AI-OSH systems
  • AI-OSH project pipeline, and relevant ethical issues
  • Completion of a team-based AI project (covering the first two steps of the project pipeline model)

After completion, participants will be able to:

  • Identify the AI systems, their types and their components at their jobs or everyday life environments
  • Determine the tasks or decisions in their jobs that might have the potential for AI intervention
  • Find an overall view of AI-OSH project pipeline and different roles associated to that and what each role needs to accomplish
  • Understand ethical concerns related to AI systems

4-Week Course:

This four-week, mentor heavy, project-based online course is designed for industry professionals to examine the need and impact that AI can have in occupational safety and health systems. Students can expect to learn what AI is, how it functions, what the building blocks of modern AI (such as agentic AI) are, and how AI systems can be used to prevent or reduce the risk of common OSH hazards. Students will work on a project in which each student will collaborate with AI experts to design an AI-OSH application to solve a problem in their workplace.

Location: Online
Time: 4 weeks (40 hours total); 2-hour sessions, 2-3 times per week
Requirements: Work in the United States; Occupational Safety & Health professional; Access to a work project.

Course Structure:

  1. Instruction: Students will listen to various lectures on what AI is and how it can be applied to OSH systems. All activities and assignments for the lectures will be completed during the set class time. 16 hours.
  2. Class Project: Students will participate in a project in which they will apply the knowledge learned and team up with AI experts to design an AI system for an application for their own workplace. The class project will take up most of the course, consisting of in-class and out-of-class time, adding up to 24 hours. The Course Project Specifications outlines what will be needed.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Learn what AI is, what the building blocks of modern AI (such as agentic AI) are, and how AI systems can be used to prevent or reduce the risk of common OSH hazards;
  2. Engage in open discussions with the instructor and fellow classmates that are prompted by the lectures;
  3. Learn how to design an AI-OSH application to solve an OSH problem in their workplace by collaborating with AI experts.

After completion, participants will be able to:

  • Understand how machine learning models are developed and evaluated;
  • Understand how large language models are developed and how they can be customized for specific purposes;
  • Work with different AI/OSH project roles to understand how a project is defined and executed and how team members should communicate.

APPLY NOW through AIHA: Applications due May 15th:
www.aiha.org/education/elearning/online-courses/ai-for-occupational-safety-and-health-osh-professionals

  • Course Dates: June 29, 2026 – August 7, 2026

Other offerings:

Podcasts: “Why AI? What next?”

AI in OSH starter/webinars: Identify the AI systems and their components at their jobs or everyday life environments; determine what level and type of detailed AI training they need.

Consult/Contract: Organizations can also request Dr. Darabi and his team for AI project customization and implementation activities.

If you are interested in requesting any of these offerings, please contact Dr. Preethi Pratap, Director of GLC-OHS Continuing Education & Outreach Program at plakshmi@uic.edu

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR:

Houshang Darabi, PhD

Professor and Department Head of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering
Adjunct Professor of Computer Science
UIC College of Engineering
Director, Targeted Research Training Program, Great Lakes Center for Occupational Health and Safety
UIC School of Public Health
hdarabi@uic.edu

Houshang Darabi obtained his PhD in Industrial Engineering from Rutgers University, his Master’s degrees from Sharif University of Technology, and his Bachelor’s from Iran University of Technology & Science. Dr. Darabi’s research interests are in process mining, time series classification, healthcare engineering, safety engineering, and engineering education. His main research interest is in Data Driven Decision Making (3DM) with applications in healthcare, education, safety, and business systems.

AI in OSH Resources