An Indianapolis attorney with years of environmental experience has been appointed by the Environmental Protection Agency director to the agency's Office of Air and Radiation. Janet McCabe, executive director of Indianapolis' Improving Kids' Environment, a nonprofit advocacy group that works to reduce environmental threats to children's health, will join the government agency as the principal deputy assistant administrator of OAR.

McCabe came to Indiana in 1993 and worked for the Indiana Department of Environmental Management's Office of Air Quality, serving as director beginning in 1998. She also worked as an adjunct professor in the Department of Public Health at Indiana University School of Medicine. McCabe has been a member of EPA's Clean Air Act Advisory Committee and Children's Health Protection Advisory Group, and the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences Council.

Before moving to Indiana, McCabe was Massachusetts' assistant secretary for environmental affairs and assistant attorney general in the state's Environmental Protection Division. She graduated from Harvard Law School in 1983.

McCabe is scheduled to begin at the EPA on Nov. 9, where she will help manage programs designed to improve air quality, address global climate change, and implement indoor air and radiation programs.