PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia-based chemist Beau Wangtrakuldee has made it her mission to make workplace safety accessible for everyone, regardless of gender, race, culture or circumstance.
It all started with a lab accident. Wangtrakuldee was researching new cancer-treatment drugs at the University of Pennsylvania.
"I was working on a chemical experiment," she said. "I had a large chemical spill accident on myself. At the time I had a lab coat on. I had on proper PPE, but ... the chemicals burned right through my lab coat onto my legs and my arms."
After she recovered, she started looking for additional protective equipment keep herself safer in the lab.
"That's when I found that PPE in women's sizes doesn't exist," she said.
Wangtrakuldee found that other women in STEM fields were having the same problem. For example, there was no fire-resistant hijab available for scientists who are Muslim.
"It's kind of funny," she said, "because, as many women Muslim scientists who work in STEM fields and healthcare — there is no such product to protect them."
That lack turned into an opportunity. Now Wangtrakuldee leads a startup called AmorSui, which produces stylish and environmentally sustainable protective equipment for women. She has created a first-of-its-kind, zero-waste, washable gown to help cut back on the millions of tons of waste coming out of hospitals.
"I'm Asian. I'm not speaking English as a second language," Wangtrakuldee says. "We just have to work harder to get to the same level as Caucasian white males."
She says, as an Asian American woman, raising money for the startup has been challenging, but her vision keeps her motivated.
"For myself, I believe in the vision that we have. It's important for different race and women to have products made for them," she said.
"I think it's really important for the industry to care about the environmentally friendly approach and not sticking to the cheapest, the most wasteful, and things that could potentially destroy our world."