An airplane comes in for a landing above an Exxon sign at a gas station in the Chicago suburb of Norridge, Illinois, U.S., October 27, 2016. REUTERS/Jim Young

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp, the world’s largest publicly traded oil producer, named an environmentalist to its board of directors on Wednesday.

The company named Susan Avery, the former head of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and a former professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, to its board, effective Feb. 1.

Exxon has come under repeated attack in the past year from environmental groups who claim the company hid research on climate change from the public.