Health and Safety Expert of the Year You’ve built a distinguished career at the forefront of occupational hygiene and health risk management. Looking back, what have been the defining moments that shaped your journey to becoming a recognised expert in this field? Early in my career, I worked on major construction projects, witnessing firsthand the risks workers faced from exposure to airborne chemical hazards. A defining moment came when I met my first tunnel worker diagnosed with silicosis— then another, and another. Seeing the extent of this incurable disease reinforced the urgent need for stronger dust control measures. This has led me to developing large-scale occupational hygiene programs on tunnelling projects and ultimately led to my being awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship to investigate global best practices for protecting tunnel workers’ health. Applying the insights gained from this fellowship, I organised the Australian tunnelling industry’s first Silica in Tunnelling Workshop at the Australasian Tunnelling Society (ATS) Conference in 2017. This event brought together key stakeholders from major tunnelling projects and sparked the formation of the ATS Air Quality Working Group, which I led for a year. Our work resulted in a new body of knowledge on silica dust awareness and control, earning international recognition with the International Tunnelling Association’s Safety Initiative of the Year award in 2019. Since then, I have been dedicated to raising awareness of the growing silicosis epidemic in both the stone benchtop and tunnelling industries. Through media advocacy and Kate Cole OAM Founder Cole Health AUSTRALIA 108 LAWYER MONTHLY EXPERT WITNESS AWARDS 2025 Kate Cole OAM is a scientist and engineer with a long-standing focus on preventing workplace illness, particularly through her work on airborne hazards like silica dust. She has worked across major construction and tunnelling projects in Australia and overseas, and now runs her own consultancy, Cole Health. In this interview, Kate reflects on the experiences that shaped her career, how she approaches expert witness work, and the challenges of making technical evidence clear and useful in legal settings. Cole Health Pty Ltd PO Box 605 Balmain NSW 204, Australia Email: kate.cole@colehealth.com.au LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kate-cole-coh www.colehealth.com.au
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