FACTBOX: Federal Reserve Board: Who's Who

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Community banker Elizabeth Duke took the oath of office as a member of the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors on Tuesday and will vote at a meeting on interest rates later in the day, the Fed said.

Her swearing-in brings the normally seven-person board up to six and could give Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke a fresh ally for a steady policy course at a time a number of the regional Fed bank presidents are pushing for early rate hikes.

Members of the board are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

The board is the heart of the U.S. central bank system, which sets interest rates and oversees the banking and payment system. It is supported by a regional structure of 12 Federal Reserve banks spread around the country, whose presidents also take part in regular monetary policy debates.

There are a total of seven board seats. A full term lasts 14 years, though board members can be appointed to serve out the unexpired term of a vacated seat. The chairman and vice chairman are named by the president from among the board members and confirmed by the Senate to a term of four years that is separate from their term as a board member.

Following are brief sketches of the current members:

CHAIRMAN BEN BERNANKE

Born: December 1953 in Augusta, Georgia

Took office: February 1, 2006

Chairman's term expires: January 31, 2010

Board term expires: January 31, 2020

Background: A former professor at Princeton University and head of the school's economics department, Bernanke previously served as board governor from 2002 to 2005, when he left to be chairman of President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, where he served until becoming Fed chairman.

A noted scholar of the Great Depression, Bernanke applied the lessons he learned from studying that devastating episode when confronting the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis. This included slashing interest rates and pumping billions of dollars into the financial system to prevent money markets from freezing completely.

This muscular action helped restore his image on Wall Street, which initially perceived him as somewhat bookish in comparison to his crisis-tested, politically savvy predecessor, Alan Greenspan.

A preeminent economist, Bernanke has published widely, including several economics textbooks. He was also director of the Monetary Economics Program at the private National Bureau of Economic Research and a member of the NBER's Business Cycle Dating Committee, the accepted arbiter of U.S. recessions.

Bernanke received a B.A. in economics in 1975 from Harvard University (summa cum laude) and a Ph.D. in economics in 1979 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

VICE CHAIRMAN DONALD KOHN

Born: November 1942 in Philadelphia

Became vice chairman: June 23, 2006

Became board governor: August 5, 2002

Vice chairman's term expires: June 23, 2010

Board term ends: June 31, 2016

Background: Kohn is a Fed veteran who began his career at the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank in 1970.

Along with Bernanke, Kohn has been the key Fed policy-maker to watch for clues to the future direction of interest rates since the collapse of the U.S. subprime mortgage market last year put the Fed into crisis-management mode. Together, they are seen as the critical mass of the Fed's decision-taking inner circle.

Kohn was a top adviser to Greenspan and served for years in senior roles within the Fed system before being named to the board. He was director of the Fed's powerful monetary affairs division before being named adviser to the board for monetary policy in 2001. In those roles, he served as secretary of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee.

He received a B.A. in economics in 1964 from the College of Wooster and a Ph.D. in economics in 1971 from the University of Michigan.

GOVERNOR KEVIN WARSH

Born: April 1970 in Albany, New York

Took office: February 24, 2006

Term expires: January 31, 2018.

Background: Warsh joined the Fed from Bush's White House, where he had worked as special assistant to the president for economic policy and executive secretary of the National Economic Council since 2002. He has served as one of the Fed's key liaisons to Wall Street since credit strains erupted last summer.

He advised the president and senior administration officials on issues related to the U.S. economy, capital markets, securities, banking, and insurance issues.

From 1995 until 2002, Warsh worked for Morgan Stanley in New York in the mergers and acquisitions department.

Warsh, the youngest governor in the Fed's history when he was confirmed to the board at age 35, received an A.B. in public policy (honors) from Stanford University in 1992. He studied law, economics, and regulatory policy at Harvard Law School, receiving a J.D. (cum laude) in 1995.

GOVERNOR RANDALL KROSZNER

Born: June 1962 in Englewood, New Jersey

Took office: March 1, 2006

Term ended: January 31, 2008.

Background: Bush renominated Kroszner, who came to the board to fill-out the remainder of an unexpired term, to a full, 14-year term in May 2007. While the Senate has yet to reconfirm him, he may continue to serve as a governor until he is replaced.

Kroszner joined the board from the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago, where he had taught since 1990.

He was a member of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers from 2001 until 2003. Before joining the board, Kroszner was a visiting scholar at the Board of Governors and a research consultant and a member of the Academic Advisory Panel at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Kroszner also has been a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve banks of New York, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Minneapolis.

He received an Sc.B. (magna cum laude) in applied mathematics-economics (honors) from Brown University in 1984 and an M.A. (1987) and Ph.D. (1990), both in economics, from Harvard University.

GOVERNOR FREDERIC MISHKIN

Born: January 1951 in New York City

Took office: September 5, 2006

Term ends: January 31, 2014.

Resigned: May 28, effective August 31, 2008

Background: Mishkin has announced his resignation and will leave the Fed at the end of August to return to teaching.

Mishkin was regarded as one of the economic heavyweights on the board supporting Bernanke's aggressive intervention to offset the fallout from the subprime crisis.

He joined the board from Columbia University, where he has been an economics professor since 1983, and he plans to return to his teaching post there. He was head of research at the New York Fed from 1994 until 1997, and was also an associate economist of the Federal Open Market Committee. Mishkin has also served as a consultant to a number of other central banks.

He received a B.S. (1973) and Ph.D. (1976), both in economics, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1999, he received an honorary professorship from the Peoples (Renmin) University of China.

GOVERNOR ELIZABETH DUKE

Born: July 23, 1952

Named to Board: May 15, 2007

Confirmed by Senate: June 27, 2008, took office Aug 5

Term ends: January 31, 2012

Background: Bush nominated Duke in May 2007 to fill an unexpired term on the board. She was confirmed by the Senate as part of a deal to clear several of the president's nominees, even though the Senate Banking Committee had not acted on her nomination. Duke has worked in banking for many years and was most recently chief operating officer of TowneBank in Portsmouth, Virginia. She is a former chairman of the American Bankers Association.

Duke, who has served on the Richmond Fed's Board of Directors, received her bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she majored in drama, and her MBA from Old Dominion University.