Dr. Corsi's team recently received a grant from the CH2M Hill Foundation to support its research on indoor air quality and VOCs. When it comes to seeking environmental solutions, Dr. Richard Corsi thinks indoor air deserves considerably more attention than it's getting. Recent research suggests indoor environments are not particularly healthy places.
Tobacco smoke is still a problem, especially in homes.
Other pollutants migrate into buildings via contaminated groundwater or volatilize from underlying soil. Certain trends of the past half century have had a negative effect on indoor air quality. Attached garages, which became standard in homes built after World War II, can bring automobile exhaust and vapors from stored chemicals inside the house. And the energy crisis of the 1970s led architects and engineers to design buildings that were increasingly airtight, allowing pollutants to build up inside. Dr. Corsi and his students have investigated a number of those factors since he joined the UT faculty in 1994.