President-elect Barack Obama has chosen Tino Cuéllar, a Calexico High School graduate, to lead his transition team’s immigration policy group.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported this week that Cuéllar, a law professor at Stanford University, will lead one of seven groups that Obama has convened to develop policy priorities for his administration.

Cuéllar, 36, is a 1990 graduate of Calexico High School who went on to receive a bachelor’s degree from Harvard, a law degree from Yale and a Ph.D. in political science from Stanford. He became a professor at Stanford in 2001.

In high school, he was “the kind of student you remember for the rest of your life,” said Marie Anderson, a retired Calexico High French teacher who taught Cuéllar for three years.

Cuéllar already spoke Spanish fluently and soon mastered French, Anderson said.

“He was very mature — I would say more mature than most high school kids, that’s for sure — very intellectual, an exceptional student,” Anderson said.

In addition to being an academic standout in high school, he also served in student government.

Frank Salazar, who knew Cuellar when they both were part of the high school’s associated student body, described him as an articulate and dedicated student.

“We knew that Tino was going somewhere,” he said. “It’s great to see a fellow Calexico alumnus, in Tino, is moving forward and will be giving the president his counsel.”

Through a spokeswoman for Stanford Law School, Cuéllar declined to be interviewed.

According to the Chronicle article, Cuéllar has been described as a close adviser to Obama on immigration and could be on the short list to head the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency.

Cuéllar served for two years in the Treasury Department during the Clinton Administration, focusing on fighting money laundering.

Cuéllar will co-lead the immigration policy transition group with Georgetown University Law Center Dean T. Alexander Aleinikoff, who was second in command at the Immigration and Naturalization Service during the Clinton years, according to the Chronicle.