Janet Yellen was expected to be confirmed Monday night as the first woman to lead the Federal Reserve as the Senate neared a final vote on her nomination.

Yellen, 67, would replace Ben Bernanke as the chairwoman of the Fed. She has been vice chairwoman of the Fed since 2010 and would begin a four-year term as chair on Feb. 1.

Bernanke has spent eight years as Fed chair, leading the Fed through the Great Recession along the way. Yellen was nominated as his replacement in October by President Obama.

In the final years of Bernanke's leadership, the Fed drove down short-term interest rates to near zero and added trillions of dollars to its account by purchasing large amounts of U.S. Treasuries. The Fed announced last month that it would begin to ease those purchases, and Yellen has publicly supported both Bernanke's initial move to add to the Fed's balance sheet and its recent decision to ease those policies.

Yellen joined the Fed after serving as the chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and was the chairwoman of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers.

During her Senate confirmation hearing, Yellen said that the Fed had helped support the economy by keeping long-term interest rates low. She received heavy public support from Senate Democrats and is expected to receive a large group of support from minority Republicans as well.

The economy has shown renewed signs of strength of late. The national unemployment rate fell to 7 percent in December, its lowest rate since December 2008.

If confirmed, Yellen would lead her first meetings as Fed chair in mid-March. According to the Central Bank Directory, cited by CNNMoney, Yellen would be the 18^th woman to lead a central bank in the 177 central banks worldwide.