He’s not getting his old job back, but D.E. Shaw Group’s Lawrence Summers is going back to Washington.

Summers will be named President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to serve as head of the National Economic Council at a press conference today in Chicago.

Summer, who served as Treasury Secretary during the final two years of President Bill Clinton’s administration, had been a finalist to return to the Treasury, but Obama will instead nominate Timothy Geithner, head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, to that post.

Summers joined D.E. Shaw two years ago, after he resigned as president of Harvard University amidst acrimony and controversy. At the New York hedge fund, he worked part-time on “strategic initiatives” and “high-level portfolio management activities.”

As director of the NEC, Summers will be one of Obama’s closest economic advisers, alongside Geithner and Office of Management and Budget director-designate Peter Orszag. The NEC coordinates economic policy for the president.

The president-elect’s economic team won’t have to wait until Obama takes office to get to work. Congressional leaders are planning to send the new president an economic stimulus package of as much as $700 billion on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20.