Malcolm Airs is Professor of Conservation and the Historic Environment at the University of Oxford having previously been conservation officer for South Oxfordshire District Council and a historian for the Greater London Council.  He is a past President of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation and a former Commissioner of the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England. He has served on advisory committees for English Heritage, the Heritage Lottery Fund and the National Trust. He has published extensively on both historic conservation and architectural history.