WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump said Monday he plans to make two nominations to the Federal Reserve Board, including Columbia University economist Richard Clarida as vice chairman.
Mr. Clarida is a Republican economist and monetary policy specialist. If confirmed by the Senate, he would serve as the No. 2 to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, who began a four-year term in February.
The second nominee is Michelle Bowman, who has been Kansas’ bank commissioner since January 2017. She would fill a spot on the seven-member Fed board reserved for a community banker or regulator of community banks. Congress designated the community banker seat in 2014.
Both picks illustrate how Mr. Trump, in reshaping the Fed board, has opted against nominating outspoken critics of the central bank, which he repeatedly criticized during the 2016 election campaign.
Mr. Clarida is managing director and global strategic adviser at Pacific Investment Management Co. and since 1988 has been an economics professor at Columbia, including four years as department chair. He is well regarded by economists on both sides of the aisle.
Mr. Clarida is described by colleagues as more of a pragmatist than an ideologue and served as the top economist in the Treasury Department during the George W. Bush administration. Mr. Powell served at the Treasury in the administration of George H.W. Bush. Mr. Trump’s first selection for the Fed board, Randal Quarles, served at the Treasury of both Bush administrations.
The Wall Street Journal reported in December that Mr. Clarida was under consideration for the vice chairman post, and in March that he was the likely nominee.
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Nominations to the Fed board are subject to Senate confirmation.
Mr. Clarida would fill the third leg of the traditional Fed policy leadership, alongside Mr. Powell and the president of the New York Fed. The regional reserve bank earlier this month designated San Francisco Fed President John Williams to succeed its retiring president, William Dudley.
Mr. Powell is the first Fed leader in more than three decades without a Ph.D. in economics. The White House has been eager to select a monetary policy specialist as his second-in-command.
Mr. Clarida has published extensive academic research on monetary policy, inflation and macroeconomics. From his perch at Pimco, Mr. Clarida also has commented frequently on Fed policy.
Mr. Clarida has quibbled with some Fed communications in recent years but hasn’t been as critical of the central bank’s policy moves as other conservative economists.
Mr. Clarida was largely supportive of efforts last year by then-Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen to gradually lift interest rates and slowly shrink the Fed’s $4.5 trillion portfolio of bonds and other assets, which swelled during successive stimulus campaigns after the 2008 financial crisis.
The vice chairman position has been vacant since October, when Stanley Fischer resigned for personal reasons. The Fed board has four vacancies.
Market participants have been eager to see whom the White House picks for vice chairman because that person will help Mr. Powell manage decisions this year over how much the Fed should raise rates. The No. 2 official could also coordinate debates concerning long-run strategy, including how to prepare for the next recession.
The Obama administration looked at nominating Mr. Clarida for a seat on the Fed board in 2011. He withdrew from consideration, and President Barack Obama nominated Mr. Powell to fill the opening.
Ms. Bowman became vice president of her family’s 135-year-old Farmers & Drovers Bank in Council Grove, Kan., in 2010. From 2004 until 2009, she ran a government and public affairs consultancy in London.
Before that, she served in top positions at the then newly created Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the George W. Bush administration, and she worked as a congressional adviser, including for former Sen. Bob Dole, the Kansas Republican.
Mr. Clarida and Ms. Bowman would be Mr. Trump’s fourth and fifth nominees to the Fed’s board, following Mr. Powell, Mr. Quarles and Carnegie Mellon University economist Marvin Goodfriend, who is awaiting Senate confirmation.
Mr. Goodfriend, nominated last November, faces an uncertain fate in the Senate because of opposition from most Democrats and Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.).
Write to Nick Timiraos at nick.timiraos@wsj.com