Larry Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council, will step down from his job after this year's midterm elections to return to teaching at Harvard University, the White House said on Tuesday.

"I will always be grateful that at a time of great peril for our country, a man of Larry's brilliance, experience and judgment was willing to answer the call and lead our economic team," President Barack Obama said in a statement.

Summers, widely seen as the ideological head of Obama's economic team, is Harvard's former president. As an adviser to Obama, Summers helped to craft the administration's stimulus package, bail out the auto industry and push for a comprehensive health care law.

"I'm looking forward to returning to Harvard to teach and write about the economic fundamentals of job creation and stable finance as well as the integration of rising and developing countries into the global system," Summers said in a statement.

Summers remained a tenured professor at Harvard throughout Obama's administration &- the university let him take a two-year leave of absence that would have come to an end

In January.

Though Summers' tenure at Harvard has been controversial &- he has been accused of sexism for comments he made about women in mathematics &- the school says they are welcoming him back.

"Larry Summers is one of a number of distinguished Harvard faculty who took leave to serve the Government, continuing a long tradition of public service by members of our faculty," said Colin B Durrant, a Harvard spokesman. "We look forward to his return."