Harvard’s Lawrence H. Summers named as head of Obama’s National Economic Council

President Barack Obama announced on November 24, 2008, that he has selected Lawrence H. Summers as the next director of the National Economic Council. Currently, Mr. Summers is the Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard.

Summers entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the age of 16 and received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1975. He then began his Harvard career as a doctoral student in economics. He was awarded a PhD from Harvard in 1982. By that time, he had taught for three years as an economics faculty member at MIT, where he was named assistant professor in 1979 and associate professor in 1982. He then went to Washington as a domestic policy economist for the President’s Council of Economic Advisors.

In 1983, he returned to Harvard as a professor of economics and, at 28, was one of the youngest individuals to be named as a tenured member of the University’s faculty. In 1987 he was named Nathanial Robes Professor of Political Economy.

In 1987, Mr. Summers became the first social scientist ever to receive the annual Alan T. Waterman Award of the National Science Foundation (NSF), established by Congress to honor an exceptional young U.S. scientist or engineer whose work demonstrates originality, innovation, and a significant impact within one’s field. In 1993, Mr. Summers was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal, given every two years to the outstanding American economist under the age of 40.

In 1991, Mr. Summers returned to Washington to serve as the vice president of development economics and chief economist of the World Bank until 1993. In 1993, Mr. Summers was named as the nation’s undersecretary of the treasury for international affairs. In 1995, Mr. Summers was promoted to the department’s number-two post, deputy secretary of the treasury.

On July 2, 1999, Mr. Summers was confirmed by the Senate as a secretary of the treasury. In that capacity, he served as the principal economic advisor to President Clinton and as the chief financial officer of the US government, presiding over federal department comprising some two dozen distinct bureaus and offices with a civilian workforce of nearly 150,000 employees.

From July 1, 2001 until June 30, 2006 Mr. Summers served as Harvard University’s 27^th president. During this time, he also served as the Arthur Okun Distinguished Fellow in Economics, Globalization, and Governance at the Brookings Institution in Washington. In 2002, Mr. Summers was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, a private organization of scientists and engineers dedicated to the furtherance of science and its use for the general welfare.

As the head of Obama’s National Economic Council, Mr. Summers will coordinate economic policy-making and economic policy advice for the President.

President Obama praised Mr. Summers as “one of the greatest economic minds of our time” in making the announcement. “I will rely heavily on his advice as we navigate the uncharted waters of this crisis,” Obama said.

Summers joined the Obama economic teamin the summer of 2008, shortly after Hillary Clinton bowed out of the Democratic primary race, and became an early voice arguing for a major fiscal stimulus. Summers then served in the transition economics team since the Democrat's victory on November 4.

Other economics team members announced by President Obama include Timothy F. Geithner as Secretary of the Treasury, Christina D. Romer as Director of the Council of Economic Advisors, Melody C. Barnes as Director of the Domestic Policy Council and Heather A. Higginbottom as Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council.