before dr qingsheng wang became an associate professor of chemical engineering at the mary kay o'connor process safety center at texas a&m university he was a doctoral student working there wang answered a few questions about his journey from texas a&m and back and how this experience has shaped him into the researcher and mentor he is today q: can you tell us a little bit about what brought you to texas a&m university as a student a: dr f albert cotton brought me to texas a&m university it was 2005 and i had just completed my undergraduate and masters studies in chemistry from zhejiang university in china i wanted to pursue a phd and at that time dr cotton was a distinguished professor in the department of chemistry at texas a&m he was a very famous chemist with his name appearing in a few textbooks i really wanted to join his lab he was studying the chemistry behind metal-metal bonds an area of research i was interested in so i applied to the universitys graduate program in chemistry and i got in q: cotton was part of the chemistry department and you spent the majority of your graduate studies at texas a&m working as a researcher for the mary kay o'connor process safety center in the college of engineering how did you wind up there a: when i was in my second year of graduate school dr cotton passed away and so i was on the lookout for a new lab for my doctoral studies i did speak to many professors in that regard but the conversations i had with dr sam mannan really stood out he was the director of the mary kay o'connor process safety center which is a part of the department of chemical engineering i was fascinated by the kind of research they did at the center particularly on the reaction mechanisms that trigger chemical explosions i could apply a lot of my knowledge in quantum chemistry to study how volatile chemicals break down and eventually explode also i had the opportunity to work on projects that were industry-focused which made sense since most incidents of chemical explosions happen in industries q: are explosions common in chemical industries a: oh yes they happen pretty often and some of them are really big for example in 1947 there was an incident in texas city where ammonium nitrate which is a common fertilizer exploded because it accidentally caught on fire in 2013 in west texas the same chemical exploded and just last year the chemical safety board investigated a few incidents in fact the mary kay oconnor process safety center was established to educate engineers to identify and prevent potential fires and explosions before situations become irreversibly dangerous q: did you continue studying fires and explosions after graduate school a: yes i wanted to remain in academia and do more research on that topic oklahoma state university had an opening in the department of fire protection and safety engineering i applied interviewed and got an offer to join as an assistant professor almost immediately after in my lab i studied mostly fire safety and the combustion dynamics behind fires caused by burning different materials i was very fortunate that my training in chemistry and chemical engineering at texas a&m uniquely positioned me to study this topic q: in 2019 you returned to texas a&m after spending eight and a half years at oklahoma state university what made you come back a: my phd advisor dr mannan i was doing really well at oklahoma state; i was an endowed professor and was supervising several phd and masters students dr mannan called me one day and said that the mary kay o'connor process safety center was expanding and there were a few faculty positions that were available he said that the number of phd students at the center had increased a lot he wanted my help and i wanted to help but i also knew that coming back gave me the opportunity to give back to the institution i learned so much from it was win-win