Washington

President George W. Bush ended months of speculation on 25 June, when he nominated John Marburger, a physicist who now directs the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, New York, for the post of White House science adviser.

Pending approval by the US Senate, 60-year-old Marburger, whose research background is in lasers and nonlinear optics, will also direct the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Words of advice: John Marburger says scientists need to become more responsive communicators. Credit: BROOKHAVEN NATIONAL LAB.

In an interview, Marburger told Nature that he sees the adviser's role as being that of “a broker between the scientific community and the administration”. But at the same time, he cautions that “science is not the only driver for policy”, and that the president will always consider other factors, such as economics, in his decisions. And, ominously for scientists looking for extensive budget increases, Marburger notes that Bush's recently enacted tax cut could make such increases a difficult proposition.

But with the White House already ensnared in scientific controversies ranging from climate change to stem-cell research (see next article), it is Marburger's established skills as a mediator and public explainer of science that are likely to come to the fore.

Marburger believes that scientists need to be better communicators — and to respect others' points of view. “It isn't as if scientists [just] need to teach the public about science,” he says. “There's a lot of emotion on these issues, and you need to be patient with the concerns and take them very seriously. You can't just stonewall people who are concerned about their health, or who are concerned about their faith.”

Marburger arrived at Brookhaven in 1998 in the role of clean-up man, following a huge public row over a radioactive leak that had mobilized local opinion against the laboratory (see Nature 400, 303; 1999). He soon received widespread praise for calming down what had become an ugly feud between laboratory staff and environmental activists.

Before Marburger took over, “you couldn't even get people at the lab to return your phone calls”, says Scott Cullen, a lawyer for the anti-nuclear STAR Foundation, which led local criticism of the laboratory. “It was a completely adversarial relationship,” Cullen adds. “He definitely changed that.”

It wasn't Marburger's first experience in a hothouse public controversy: 20 years ago, he chaired a fact-finding panel on Long Island's Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant, which was bitterly opposed by activists and was eventually dismantled.

Although lacking direct authority over major research agencies, such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, the science adviser is the US administration's top-ranking official for setting science policy. If, as expected, Marburger is confirmed by the Senate, he will also co-chair the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology with the venture capitalist Floyd Kvamme (see Nature 410, 617; 2001).

Marburger received his undergraduate degree from Princeton and his doctorate in applied physics from Stanford. In the 1970s he was a department chair and dean at the University of Southern California, where he co-founded a centre for laser studies. From 1980 to 1994, he was president of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, from where he also served as chairman of the Universities Research Association as it managed construction of the ill-fated Superconducting Supercollider project.

Michael Lubell, head of public affairs at the American Physical Society, calls the nominee “a good choice”, and praises him for his solid understanding of science policy. But Lubell worries whether the new science adviser will obtain direct access to the president, or instead will have to work through White House staff director Andrew Card.

It is a question Marburger has asked himself. “I was interested in how the staff works to provide advice to the administration on all kinds of issues,” he says. “And I was impressed with the dynamic that I found in the president's office. They work well together as a team, and the president seems to listen.”