Julie Pace has been named new Associated Press White House correspondent. Pace began covering Barack Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign and followed him to the White House, reporting on the president over four years from across the nation and around the world.

Pace will lead a team that includes Jim Kuhnhenn on economics and budget issues, Nedra Pickler on legal issues and other domestic beats and Darlene Superville and Josh Lederman on subjects such as global warming, education, politics, Joe Biden and Michelle Obama. As correspondent, she will keep her focus on big stories such as foreign policy and immigration.

Pace joined AP’s video operations in Washington in 2007 and a year later moved over to the campaign as a video and print reporter. She worked at e.tv (a South African television station) and as a freelancer in South Africa and Zambia in 2003 and 2004. From 2005 to 2007, she worked as a reporter at the Tampa Tribune in Tampa, Fla.