In one of his gutsier moves, President-Elect Barack Obama has chosen UC Berkeley professor Christina Romer as the chair of his Council of Economic Advisers. Romer has been a professor at Berkeley since 1988 and previously was an assistant professor at Princeton University. She has been the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, several NSF grants and awards, and the Distinguished Teaching Award at UC Berkeley. She is the National Bureau of Economic Research Co-Director in Monetary Economics and acted as the VP of the American Economic Association in 2006.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

What makes this selection more interesting than some of the other Obama picks is she's a female, a California academic, and a Washington outsider.

An important distinction is that this is different than the job Lawrence Summers is expected to get as director of the National Economic Council.

The Council of Economic Advisers is a group of economists, including three who are appointed by the president and need Senate confirmation, who advise the president on economic policy.

The CEA is part of the executive office.

Congratulations to Romer. She will need it.