Norbert S. Baer Fund for Student Support

The Norbert S. Baer Fund for Student Support commemorates the retirement of Dr. Norbert S. Baer in May of 2019 after fifty years of research and teaching in materials science as applied to the preservation of cultural heritage. This fund will provide direct, vital support for conservation students at the Institute of Fine Arts.

MAKE YOUR GIFT TO the Norbert S. Baer Fund online

Biography

Norbert S. Baer, Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Conservation, retired at the end of the 2019 spring semester after fifty years of research and teaching in materials science applied to the preservation of cultural heritage. Dr. Baer began teaching at the Center in 1969 and was named Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Conservation in 1986. In addition to numerous senior administrative positions, he assumed overall responsibility for the programming and construction of the Stephen Chan House, home of the Conservation Center. Dr. Baer served in an advisory capacity to the American Research Center in Egypt, the Indo-US Subcommission on Education and Culture, the US National Archives, the European Commission Directorate on Environmental Research, and the Committee on Natural Disasters. As a Guggenheim Fellow from 1983–1984, he turned his attention to larger issues of preservation policy, in particular, the introduction of concepts of risk management to the conservation of cultural materials, leading to the Dahlem Conference on Rational Decision-Making in the Preservation of Cultural Property and the proceedings, published in 2001 under the same name.