Washington

After a couple of years of incessant bad news, researchers at the Smithsonian Institution were expressing some optimism this week following the appointment of a respected oceanographer as the museum complex's undersecretary of science.

David Evans plans to provide direction. Credit: NOAA

Smithsonian secretary Larry Small — whose business-led approach has drawn him into bitter public conflict with many of the institution's researchers — announced on 19 August that the position will be filled by David Evans, who is currently the senior research administrator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Evans has a research background in physical oceanography and its interaction with climate. He succeeds Dennis O'Connor, who left the museum complex in May to become vice-president for research at the University of Maryland at College Park.

Researchers are now hoping that Evans can build a constructive relationship with the different branches of the sprawling Smithsonian empire. Scientists and other critics assailed Small last year for suggesting that the administration of the entire complex should be split in two, with research administered centrally and separately from exhibits. The director of the National Museum of Natural History resigned in protest at the plan (see Nature 411, 624; 200110.1038/35079752), which is currently being reviewed by the Smithsonian Science Commission, a specially appointed scientific panel.

Evans says that he sees interaction between research and exhibition staff as a unique strength of the Smithsonian — the largest museum complex in the world. “By using a combined facility of research and museum exposition, we can show people how science is really done,” he says. But he asserts that some Smithsonian units have been “left adrift” by the institution, and says that he will draw on his experience to try to provide them with direction.

Institution staff say that they hope Evans's appointment and an ongoing search for a new director for the Natural History museum mean that the Smithsonian is heeding the science commission's call for the prompt hiring of strong scientific leaders. The commission's full report is due by the end of the year.

But some scientists remain sceptical that a central vision for the diverse Smithsonian science units will work. “We do a lot of different things for historical reasons,” says Ira Rubinoff, director of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. “The point is not that we do them all together, but whether it's good science that serves the nation — and I think it does.”