When renowned zoologist Jane Lubchenco was sworn in as President Obama's director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 2009, she declared: “Science will be respected at NOAA; science will not be muzzled." Lubchenco's doctrine signaled a new day. Today, four years later, she would be the first to admit that her edict was a bit naïve.  Her foray into politics, which ends this month, has been a wild ride through a policy minefield. The first big media test for the former Oregon State University professor came in April 2010, when BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and spilling over 4 million barrels of oil into the sea. Lubchenco was the administration's face in front of the cameras, stammering her way through convoluted explanations of what went wrong to a bewildered press and an outraged public. The next big test came