President Barack Obama will announce Friday that he is appointing University of Chicago economist Austan Goolsbee to chair his Council of Economic Advisers, ABC News reported late Thursday.

Obama will formally announce the appointment at the start of his White House press conference at 11 a.m. Goolsbee has already been confirmed by the Senate to serve on the panel; Obama has to take the extra step of naming the chairman.

Goolsbee will replace Christina Romer, who stepped down last week to return to her former job as an economics professor at the University of California at Berkeley.