Lisa Cook is confirmed as a new Fed governor.

Lisa D. Cook is the first Black woman to hold that influential policy post after being confirmed by the Senate.

The Biden administration is one step closer to changing the leadership team at the central bank after Vice President Harris broke a 50-to-50 tie in the Senate.

Ms. Cook, an economist at Michigan State University who has researched racial disparity and labor markets, was nominated along with a slate of other officials. President Biden had a chance to fill two open governor positions and pick a new chair, vice chair and vice chair for supervision.

Mr. Biden's pick for Fed vice chair, Lael Brainard, is the only one of his nominees who had already been confirmed.

Mr. Biden has also nominated a Davidson College administrator, Philip N. Jefferson, to be the next Fed chair. His initial nominee for the Fed vice chair for supervision withdrew from consideration due to Republican and Democratic opposition. Michael S. Barr is waiting for a confirmation hearing after being put up for the job.

If the additional nominees are confirmed, Mr. Biden will have nominated or re-nominated five of the Fed's seven governors. The White House can shape the future of monetary policy by appointing people to the Fed, because the Fed is independent of politics.

The Fed's board in Washington has constant votes on monetary policy and oversees the nation's largest banks. Five of the 12 regional reserve bank presidents hold a vote at any given time, and they set interest rates to guide the economy.

Mr. Biden's nominees to the board are likely to stick to the course the central bank has already begun to chart. At its meeting last week, the Fed raised interest rates by a bigger amount than it had done in March. It will shrink its bond holdings in order to push up interest rates and slow the economy.

By making money more expensive to borrow, the Fed is trying to slow down spending and hiring, which could allow inflation to moderate over time as supply catches up with demand. The nominees made it clear during their hearings that they were committed to bringing down high inflation.

Ms. Cook said during her testimony that high inflation is a grave threat to a long, sustained expansion.

Ms. Cook received her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. She mentors younger economists through the American Economic Association Summer Program, which aims to increase diversity in the field of economics.