In the months leading up to the January 20 inauguration (opens in new tab), as soon as the election results were finally certified in his favor and the transition of power (opens in new tab) was officially allowed to begin, current President Joe Biden announced a series of cabinet (opens in new tab) and other senior White House staff They wasted no time at all in announcing a series of appointments. Among them, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris announced press appointments (opens in new tab) on November 29, in keeping with their pledge to "build an executive branch that reflects the diversity of its citizens." [Telling the truth directly to the American people is one of the President's most important tasks, and this team will be entrusted with the critical responsibility of connecting the American people with the White House. Today, I am proud to announce the first White House senior communications team composed entirely of women," Biden said in a statement.

The seven appointed include Harris, First Lady Dr. Jill Biden (opens in new tab), the White House-wide communications director, two deputy directors, and Harris' chief press secretary. At the helm of this historic team is Jen Psaki, who, as press secretary, serves as spokesperson for the entire Biden administration. Here is what you need to know about Psaki, including her (many years of) experience as a senior White House spokeswoman.

Psaki has been a key member of the press teams of several presidential and campaign campaigns for nearly two decades; within a few years of graduating from the College of William and Mary in 2000, she joined John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign as deputy press secretary. He then briefly served as a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee before returning to the world of presidential campaigns, joining the Obama-Biden campaign in 2008 as a traveling spokesperson.

In Obama's first term, he was appointed deputy press secretary and later promoted to deputy press director; in 2011, he briefly left politics to serve as senior vice president and managing director of a Washington, D.C., PR firm before joining the Obama re-election campaign. During the second term of the Obama administration, he served as State Department press secretary under Secretary John Kerry and returned to the White House as communications director for the final two years of the Obama administration.

During Donald Trump's presidency, Psaki became a political commentator for CNN and vice president for communications and strategy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. However, when Biden was elected president, she left these posts to oversee the Biden-Harris transition confirmation team.

The White House press secretary is the most important source of information and statements from the executive branch for the media, for which the press secretary serves as the primary spokesperson. The post was first established in 1929, during the presidency of Herbert Hoover.

As the face of the White House, Psaki gathers information from the President, Vice President, and Cabinet, coordinates with the rest of the administration's press team, and conducts daily press briefings. In addition, the White House Press Secretary typically responds to the press throughout the day at press briefings, event-specific briefings, and off-camera "press conferences" to answer questions about specific administration plans and policies.

For those who want to keep up with Psaki's work, her press briefings are streamed live daily by C-SPAN, PBS, and other news networks, plus daily updates through her official Twitter account @PressSec (opens in new tab)

The Briefing is streamed live daily on C-SPAN, PBS and other news networks.

When Biden announced that Psaki would return to the White House as press secretary, she tweeted (opens in new tab):" Honored to be working for @JoeBiden again. He was my deputy during the Obama-Biden administration and he guided the economic recovery, rebuilt relationships with partners (which turned out to be a good habit), and injected empathy and humanity into nearly every meeting I sat in on.

She also gave a shout-out to the other "talented, hands-on" women who join her on the White House senior communications team, noting that they are "the most diverse team in history, six mothers with young children" (in new tab (open in new tab).

Finally, Psaki hinted at what the Biden administration's communication strategy might look like with her at the center: "As the inauguration approaches, I can't wait to share what we're thinking, but (Chief Deputy Press Secretary Carine Jean-Pierre and I) just this morning, from the podium We talked about spending the next few weeks thinking outside the box about how to make the Biden-Harris agenda more accessible," she tweeted (opens in new tab).

Within hours of taking office, Biden signed 17 executive orders (opens in new tab) and sent Psaki to give his first official briefing to the assembled White House press corps on the afternoon of the 20th. As he had said when he first took office, Psaki emphasized throughout his speech that the new White House public affairs team would focus on "rebuilding trust" and providing transparency and accessibility, in contrast to the antagonistic attitude toward the media that the previous administration's public affairs team had adopted.

"I have deep respect for the role of a free and independent press. We have a common goal, and that is to share accurate information with the American people," Psaki said at the briefing, according to the New York Times (opens in new tab). That's fine. That's part of democracy."

She took questions from nearly every reporter in attendance, including those with a different perspective from the administration. Groundbreaking.

An episode of Showtime's "Circus," which aired after Psaki's debut, offers a fun peek behind the very imposing curtain. She does a little dance to shake off the pre-briefing nerves and sings a little tune about the big day.

According to The Hill (opens in new tab), in an interview after this episode, she explained the reason for her first-day nerves. Even though she had a similar job at the State Department, the weight of "I want to represent the president, I want to see this moment, everyone is watching, I want to make my mother proud."

"But once I got out there, it was a great feeling."

Psaki's calm, reasoned approach to press briefings has been refreshingly banal compared to the spokespersons of the past four years: the Trump administration briefings began with Sean Spicer lying about the size of the crowds attending Trump's inauguration and recently ended with Kayleigh McEnany's refusal to take questions from a CNN reporter who called her an "activist." In the process, Trump's communications team eventually stopped holding daily press briefings altogether.

Then, as presidential historian Michael Beschloss puts it (opens in new tab), Psaki's calm and clear respect for the truth immediately made her "the first non-weirdo White House press secretary in four years."