22 Facts About Maria Klawe

Maria Margaret Klawe is a Canadian-American computer scientist and served as the fifth president of Harvey Mudd College from 2006 to 2023.

Maria Klawe was previously Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton University.

Maria Klawe is known for her advocacy for women in STEM fields.

Maria Klawe lived in Scotland from ages 4 to 12, and then returned to Canada, living with her family in Edmonton, Alberta.

Maria Klawe stayed at Alberta for her graduate studies, and in 1977 she earned her Ph.

Maria Klawe joined the mathematics faculty at Oakland University as an assistant professor in 1977 but only stayed for a year.

Maria Klawe spent eight years in industry, serving at IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California, first as a research scientist, then as manager of the Discrete Mathematics Group and manager of the Mathematics and Related Computer Science Department.

Maria Klawe became a citizen of the United States on January 29,2009.

Maria Klawe was inducted as a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery in 1996, a founding fellow of the Canadian Information Processing Society in 2006, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009, a fellow of the American Mathematical Society in 2012, and a fellow of the Association for Women in Mathematics in 2019.

Maria Klawe has been awarded honorary doctorates from Ryerson Polytechnic University in 2001, the University of Waterloo in 2003, Queen's University in 2004, Dalhousie University in 2005, Acadia University in 2006, the University of Alberta in 2007, the University of Ottawa in 2008, the University of British Columbia in 2010, the University of Toronto in 2015, Concordia University in 2016, and McGill University in 2018.

Maria Klawe was the winner of the 2014 Woman of Vision ABIE Award for Leadership from the Anita Borg Institute.

Maria Klawe served as the president of the Association for Computing Machinery from 2002 to 2004, and in 2004 won the A Nico Habermann award.

Some of Maria Klawe's best-cited research works concern algorithms for solving geometric optimization problems, distributed leader election, and the art gallery problem, and studies of the effects of gender on electronic game-playing.

Maria Klawe founded the Aphasia Project, a collaboration between UBC and Princeton to study aphasia and develop cognitive aids for people suffering from it, after her friend Anita Borg developed brain cancer.

Maria Klawe has been heavily involved with increasing the representation of women in STEM fields.

Maria Klawe was in charge of increasing female participation in science and engineering.

Maria Klawe was a personal friend of Anita Borg and served as the chair of the Board of Trustees of the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology from 1996 to 2011.

Maria Klawe believes that women should take an entry level computer science course during their first year at college that focuses on portraying the field as fun and engaging rather than trying to convince women to stay.

Maria Klawe believes that if programming courses are taken at the middle school level then they have another four years of high school for peer pressure to get them disinterested again.

Maria Klawe emphasizes that the introductory courses offered need to be presented in a problem-solving environment, not a competitive one where a few males dominate the conversation.

Maria Klawe believes the "testosterone culture" prevents women from continuing on with CS because the men that know everything scare away anyone who is trying to learn.

Currently, Maria Klawe is working on helping biology majors learn computer science by working with UCSD to create a biology themed introductory computer science course.