Quiet White House Science Office Stirs Fears but Also Raises Some Hopes

Across the country, scientists are watching with dismay as the months tick by without any appointment of a White House science adviser. The omission is “symbolically worrisome,” said one of those researchers, Christopher F. D’Elia, dean of the College of the Coast and Environment at Louisiana State University. “We’d like to see scientists respected, and a scientist as the science adviser.” But a less-visible, if arguably more consequential, White House absence is now compounding — or, to some minds, possibly easing — those anxieties in the university research community.