Team Obama: Where are they now?

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the highest-profile departure from the White House, left shortly after President Obama’s second inauguration. Clinton’s final months were occupied by illness and controversy over her handling of the response to the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, but her popularity remains high as anticipation builds for a 2016 presidential run.  (Matt Rourke / Associated Press)

The spirited (and notoriously profane) Rahm Emanuel left Congress to serve as Obama’s first chief of staff in 2009, and lasted more than a year until becoming mayor of Chicago in 2011.  (Charles Rex Arbogast / Associated Press)

One of President Obama’s longest-serving advisors, David Axelrod worked at the Chicago Tribune until entering politics. The two had known each other since 1992, and Axelrod eventually served as Obama’s chief campaign advisor in 2008. After the election, he served as Obama’s senior advisor until 2011, when he left to work on the 2012 campaign. Axelrod announced the reelection campaign would be his last, and has since focused on his work to find a cure for epilepsy, along with a gig as a political analyst for NBC and MSNBC.  (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)

President Obama retained Robert Gates as his secretary of Defense after Gates had served under President George W. Bush since 2006. Gates stepped down in 2011. An architect of the troop surge strategy in the Iraq War, Gates later oversaw the beginning of the Obama-era withdraw from the country. A Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, Gates is now the 24th Chancellor of The College of William and Mary and serves on the Starbucks board of directors.  (Claudio Reyes / EPA)

Robert Gibbs wore a number of hats during his time with President Obama, serving as communications director for Obama during his time in the Senate and his 2008 campaign. After the 2008 victory, he became the White House press secretary until 2011, when he shifted to being an advisor. Gibbs is now a contributor on MSNBC, and is a co-founder of the communications practice The Incite Agency with fellow former Obama team members Ben LaBolt and Adam Fetcher.  (Ron Edmonds / Associated Press)

Leon Panetta held not one, but two posts in the Obama administration, initially becoming director of the CIA from 2009 to 2011, and then replacing outgoing Secretary of Defense Robert Gates until 2013. Panetta has returned to his home in California, directs the Panetta Institute for Public Policy and is on the board of Blue Shield of California.  (Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press)

Former Rep. Hilda Solis, (D-Calif.), was President Obama’s Labor secretary from 2009 until 2013 and the first Latina in the cabinet. Solis has since expressed interest in running for a seat in the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in 2014.  (Ron Edmonds / Associated Press)

Former Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar joined the Obama administration at the beginning of 2009, and departed from his post earlier in 2013. Salazar recently became a partner in WilmerHale, an international law firm that notably worked for BP after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.  (Rob Schumacher / Associated Press)

Physicist Steven Chu served as secretary of Energy from 2009 to 2013, persistently advocating for research into alternative fuels and becoming the first cabinet member with a Nobel Prize. Chu is returning to Stanford as a professor of physics and molecular and cellular physiology.  (Michael Reynolds / EPA)

Former Treasury Secretary until President Clinton, Lawrence Summers was the director of the White House U.S. National Economic Council in the wake of the so-called Great Recession. Summers left the White House in 2010, voicing concerns over increased government spending and returning to his post as a professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Summers is also an advisor for venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and a columnist for the Financial Times.  (Mark Lennihan / Associated Press)