A panel of experts tapped by President Barack Obama to help shape his response to the economic crisis is led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.

Moving into the spotlight after playing a behind-the-scenes role, the 16-member board meets at the White House on Wednesday in the first of what are expected to be quarterly gatherings.

The group includes Democrats and Republicans from a variety of backgrounds, including business, labor and academia.

The meeting, scheduled for 10:00 a.m., will be open to the media and carried via a live video stream on the White House website.

Austan Goolsbee, a longtime Obama adviser, is the board's staff director and chief economist. Goolsbee is also a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

Below is a list of the advisers and their backgrounds.

* PAUL VOLCKER, former Federal Reserve Chairman. Volcker is credited with conquering runaway inflation in the early 1980s through interest-rate increases that also led to a recession. He was named to the Fed in 1979 by former President Jimmy Carter and served throughout much of the Reagan administration until he was replaced by Alan Greenspan in 1987.

Volcker, a Democrat, was a key adviser to Obama during his presidential campaign. Obama referred to him in a recent New York Times magazine interview as somebody who has enormous influence over his thinking.

* WILLIAM DONALDSON, former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. He served in that role in the Bush administration from 2003 to 2005.

* ROGER FERGUSON, president and chief executive of TIAA-CREF and a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

* ROBERT WOLF, chairman and chief executive of UBS Group Americas.

* DAVID SWENSEN, chief investment officer at Yale University.

* MARK GALLOGLY, founder and managing partner of the private equity firm Centerbridge Partners L.P.

* PENNY PRTIZKER, chairman and founder of Pritzker Realty Group. Pritzker was the national finance chairwoman of Obama's presidential campaign.

* JOHN DOERR, a partner at venture-capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers.

* JIM OWENS, chairman and chief executive of Caterpillar Inc.

* MONICA LOZANO, publisher and chief executive of the Spanish-language newspaper La Opinion.

* CHARLES PHILLIPS, president of Oracle Corp.

* ANNA BURGER, secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union.

* RICHARD TRUMKA, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO labor organization.

* LAURA D'ANDREA TYSON, dean of the Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley. Tyson was a White House economic adviser to former President Bill Clinton and advised Obama during his presidential campaign.

* MARTIN FELDSTEIN, a Harvard University economics professor and former top economic adviser to President Ronald Reagan.

* JEFFREY IMMELT, chief executive of General Electric.

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