In an indication that President-elect Barack Obama wants to restore integrity to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) buffeted by politics in recent years, Jane Lubchenco has been picked as the head of the huge science-based agency.

One of the world's most prominent marine biologists, a staunch advocate of marine reserves and an Oregonian for the past 28 years, Lubchenco will the agency that oversees how the US deals with climate change, predicts the weather, regulates commercial fishermen and responds to tsunamis.

Lubchenco, working towards the protection of the abundance and diversity of marine life, has headed a team of researchers at Oregon State University studying the link of climate change devastating sea life in coastal waters off the Pacific Northwest.

The appointment of Lubchenco, along with the likely appointment of John Holdren of Harvard and Woods Hole Research Center as Science Advisor, indicates a turnaround in the federal government's approach to greenhouse gases and global warming.

Scientific and environmental organizations - hand-wringing over the politicization of science for years, and worrying about lost opportunities to preserve remnants of nature and the resiliency of the planet - are happily relieved at the nominations.

John Byrne, who headed NOAA during the Reagan Administration, noted that Lubchenco is the first woman to be nominated to the post since the agency's creation by executive order in 1970. He said: "She fits in very well with the Obama philosophy of wanting to bring about change. She's a very intelligent person, very motivated towards maintaining the quality of our environment, to sustainability."