When President-elect Barack Obama nominated Susan Rice as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations on Monday, Rice said she could think of "no more important time" to represent the United States to the world body.

She said at a press conference that she shares Obama's commitment to "rededicate ourselves" to the United Nations in areas including security and nuclear nonproliferation.

Obama also said he would make Rice's position a Cabinet-level post, which would be an increase in stature from the previous administration, reported the Associated Press.

Her position will require Senate confirmation.

Rice, 44, was assistant secretary of state for African affairs from 1997-2001 during the Clinton administration, according to the AP. Also, under the National Security Council, she was special assistant to the president and senior director for African affairs from 1995 to 1997 and director for international organizations and peacekeeping from 1993 to 1995.

She was one of the members of the Clinton administration team that kept the United States on the sidelines during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, and later told The Atlantic Monthly that she had learned a lesson: "I swore to myself that if I ever faced such a crisis again, I would come down on the side of dramatic action, going down in flames if that was required," quoted the New York Times.

Regarding the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, Sudan -- in which more than 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million displaced in fighting between rebels and governmental and militia forces -- Rice told the NewsHour on Nov. 17, 2006, that international military forces should pressure the Sudanese government to stop the fighting.

"If we've come to the point where the United States and the rest of the international community is going to be intimidated by a relatively weak African or other government around the world with the threat of the use of al-Qaida, then we've lost our way, we've lost the war on terrorism, and we've lost our moral compass, if we're not prepared to stand up to protect civilians from genocide," she said.

Prior to joining the Clinton administration, Rice was a management consultant for McKinsey & Co.

She was senior foreign policy adviser during Obama's campaign and senior adviser for national security affairs during Sen. John Kerry's presidential run in 2004.

Rice told the New York Sun in January that she was drawn to Obama because of his position against the war in Iraq, saying he made "the same unpopular choice I had made" despite pressure from Washington to support the war, reported the BBC.

Since 2002, she has been a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution.

Rice grew up in Washington, D.C., where she was a star basketball player and valedictorian at the National Cathedral School, according to the New York Times.

She received a B.A. in history from Stanford University, and a master's degree and doctorate in international relations from New Collage at Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar.

She and husband Ian Cameron, an ABC News executive producer, have two children.

-- Compiled from wire reports and other media sources