After a tumultuous three-year stint, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) director David Schwartz officially stepped down on Friday (Feb. 8).

During his time as NIEHS director, Schwartz's leadership was often questioned. Scientists and lawmakers criticized Schwartz in 2005 when he pushed for privatizing the institute's journal, Environmental Health Perspectives, and last August more than 100 NIEHS researchers voted no confidence in Schwartz to protest his management. Later in August, Schwartz took a temporary leave while NIH and NIEHS reviewed his management and leadership. That review is "still in process," according to NIH spokesperson Don Ralbovsky.

Schwartz announced his resignation from NIEHS in an Email to the institute's staff. According to Science, Schwartz wrote that "our community has not universally embraced the scientific direction or strategies that I have implemented" and that he had "inadvertently disenfranchised segments of our community."

Schwartz has signed on as director of the Pulmonary and Critical Care Division at National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver, Colorado, where he'll also lead a genetics research center. Schwartz will remain at his NIEHS lab through May before starting in Denver, according to NIEHS spokesperson Christine Bruske Flowers.

Samuel Wilson, who has been acting NIEHS director in Schwartz's absence, will remain in that role until a new permanent director is appointed, Bruske Flowers told The Scientist.