Nicholas Stanley Price

Deputy Director, The GCI Training Program

Photo: Neville Agnew

A native of England, Dr. Stanley Price came to conservation by a circuitous route. His undergraduate work at Oxford University began with Latin and Greek, but his study of Homer stirred a curiosity about archaeology as an independent source of evidence for ancient history. This curiosity led to graduate studies in prehistoric archaeology and a doctorate in 1976 with a thesis on the early prehistoric settlement of Cyprus.

After some ten years of archaeological administration and fieldwork in Cyprus and the Middle East, Dr. Stanley Price found himself the Assistant Archaeological Advisor in Oman. His responsibilities in Oman for national archaeological collections and site conservation coincided with a growing concern for the deteriorated state of many abandoned excavated sites in the Middle East. Convinced of the need to rectify the lacuna in his own education as an archaeologist, he went to ICCROM in Rome to take a course on "Scientific Principles of Conservation." He then joined the ICCROM staff as coordinator of the same course, while also working to promote the protection of archaeological sites through organizing training courses, conferences, and publications. In 1987, he joined the Training Program of the GCI.

He believes the GCI has had a notable impact internationally by identifying training needs not being met, and then providing opportunities for mid-career professionals to refine their skills or acquire new ones. GCI's courses in rock art conservation, which Dr. Stanley Price has been responsible for developing, are an example of a response to needs in a previously neglected field. Dr. Stanley Price also contributes to international conservation activity through the ICOM Committee for Conservation, which he serves as Treasurer and as Coordinator of its Working Group on Training.

Shin Maekawa

Head, Environmental Sciences, The GCI Scientific Program

Photo: Neville Agnew

Born in Japan, Mr. Maekawa studied applied mechanics at the University of California, San Diego, and then went on to receive a master's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1978. His areas of specialty include mathematical and physical modeling of fluid mechanics, heat transfer, and mass transfer systems.

Following graduation, Mr. Maekawa worked as a senior engineer in the research and development division of Honeywell, an aerospace and defense company. There he spent over ten years doing oceanographic and marine engineering work. Although he enjoyed the field research aspect of the work, its defense and weapons orientation was personally unsatisfying. He wanted to apply his abilities to something he felt was more positive in nature.

It was Mr. Maekawa's father-in-law, the president of a cultural foundation in Japan, who first told him of the work of the GCI. Mr. Maekawa, who had always been interested in the arts, especially painting, visited the Institute in 1987. Two years later he joined the GCI's Scientific Program.

Since coming to the GCI he has developed, using existing technologies, autonomous solar-powered environmental monitoring stations to collect data that can aid in a cultural site's conservation. In the last two years he has installed monitoring stations at sites in China, Egypt, Ecuador, Bolivia, and the United States. At present, he spends nearly a third of his time in the field working on these stations. He hopes to refine the technology further so that all field work at the stations can be easily managed by local staff.

Mr. Maekawa is also conducting research on microenvironmental issues in museums—in particular, the problem of moisture migration in display and storage cases. In the future he will be studying the use of passive and semipassive environmental controls in buildings situated in tropical climates, with the objective of identifying those controls that are the most effective and cost-efficient.