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Professor Glen R. Cass—whose contributions to our understanding of the indoor concentrations of air pollutants in museums and archives were seminal to preventive conservation science—passed away from cancer in July 2001 in North Carolina. He was 54.
Cass was a respected and prolific research collaborator of the Getty Conservation Institute. His interests spanned a wide range of related topics in environmental engineering, and he had more than 200 published articles, conference proceedings, book chapters, and technical reports to his credit.
Cass did extensive research for the GCI, including studies to determine which artists' colorants are subject to fading by gaseous pollutants like ozone. He also conducted many studies on air pollutant intrusion into historic sites and into museums and other facilities that house artwork.
In China, he helped the Institute design computer-based models that simulated the airflow into the Yungang grottoes, a collection of man-made cave temples, dating from the fifth century, that hold more than 50,000 stone carvings. The grottoes are situated in one of China's largest coal-mining regions, and Cass's work contributed to the design of filtration systems and appropriate ventilation rates for reducing air pollution within the grottoes.
Cass was a member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's advisory committee on Ozone, Particulate Matter, and Regional Haze Implementation Programs, and he formerly served on the EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee. He also served on advisory panels for the National Research Council, the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute, the Center on Environmental Health Sciences at MIT, the Universities Corporation for Atmospheric Research, and the South Coast Air Quality Management District.
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