Maria Margaret Klawe ( ; born 1951) is a computer scientist and the fifth president of

Harvey Mudd College Harvey Mudd College (HMC) is a private college in Claremont, California, focused on science and engineering. It is part of the Claremont Colleges, which share adjoining campus grounds and resources. The college enrolls 902 undergraduate students ...

(since July 1, 2006). Born in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

in 1951, she became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2009. She was previously Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

. She is known for her advocacy for

women in STEM fields Many scholars and policymakers have noted that the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) have remained predominantly male with historically low participation among women since the origins of these fields in the 18th ce ...

Biography

Klawe was born in

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

. She lived in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

from ages 4 to 12, and then returned to Canada, living with her family in

Edmonton, Alberta Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city anchor ...

.. Klawe studied at the

University of Alberta The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexander Cameron Rutherfor ...

, dropped out to travel the world, and returned to earn her

B.Sc. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

in 1973. She stayed at Alberta for her graduate studies, and in 1977 she earned her

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

there in mathematics. She joined the mathematics faculty at

Oakland University Oakland University is a public research university in Auburn Hills and Rochester Hills, Michigan. Founded in 1957 through a donation of Matilda Dodge Wilson, it was initially known as Michigan State University-Oakland, operating under the Mi ...

as an assistant professor in 1977 but only stayed for a year. She started a second Ph.D., in computer science, at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

, but was offered a faculty position there before completing the degree. When she made the decision to get a PhD in computer science she had never studied the subject before. There weren't many undergraduate classes at the time so she enrolled in upper-level courses and studied about 16 hours a day to do well. She spent eight years in industry, serving at IBM's

Almaden Research Center IBM Research is the research and development division for IBM, an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, with operations in over 170 countries. IBM Research is the largest industrial research org ...

San Jose, California San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popul ...

, first as a research scientist, then as manager of the

Discrete Mathematics Discrete mathematics is the study of mathematical structures that can be considered "discrete" (in a way analogous to discrete variables, having a bijection with the set of natural numbers) rather than "continuous" (analogously to continuous f ...

Group and manager of the Mathematics and Related Computer Science Department. She and her husband

Nick Pippenger Nicholas John Pippenger is a researcher in computer science. He has produced a number of fundamental results many of which are being widely used in the field of theoretical computer science, database processing and compiler optimization. He has ...

then moved to the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

, where she stayed for 15 years and served as head of the Department of Computer Science from 1988 to 1995, vice president of student and academic services from 1995 to 1998, and dean of science from 1998 to 2002. From UBC she moved to Princeton and then Harvey Mudd College, where she is the first woman president. When she arrived at Mudd only about 30% of students and faculty were female. Today about 50% of the students and over 40% of the faculty are female. She became a citizen of the United States on January 29, 2009. Later in 2009, she joined the

board of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

of the

Microsoft Corporation Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

Awards and honors

Klawe was inducted as a fellow of the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

in 1996, a founding fellow of the

Canadian Information Processing Society CIPS (Canadian Information Processing Society) is the professional association of IT professionals in Canada. Since 1958 CIPS has helped strengthen the Canadian IT industry by establishing standards and sharing best practices for the benefit of ind ...

in 2006, a fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in 2009, a fellow of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

in 2012, and a fellow of the

Association for Women in Mathematics The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) is a professional society whose mission is to encourage women and girls to study and to have active careers in the mathematical sciences, and to promote equal opportunity for and the equal treatment o ...

in 2019. She has been awarded honorary doctorates from

Ryerson Polytechnic University Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU or Toronto Met) is a public research university located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The university's core campus is situated within the Garden District, although it also operates facilities elsewhere in Toro ...

in 2001, the

University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a public research university with a main campus in Waterloo, Ontario Waterloo is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is one of three cities in the Regional Municipality ...

in 2003, Queen's University in 2004,

Dalhousie University Dalhousie University (commonly known as Dal) is a large public research university in Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the fou ...

in 2005,

Acadia University Acadia University is a public, predominantly undergraduate university located in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada, with some graduate programs at the master's level and one at the doctoral level. The enabling legislation consists of the Acadia ...

in 2006, the

in 2007, the

University of Ottawa The University of Ottawa (french: Université d'Ottawa), often referred to as uOttawa or U of O, is a bilingual public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on directly to the northeast of Downtown Ottawa ...

in 2008, the

in 2010, the

in 2015,

Concordia University Concordia University ( French: ''Université Concordia'') is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College and Sir George Williams University, Concordia is one of the t ...

in 2016, and

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...

in 2018 She was the winner of the 2014 Woman of Vision ABIE Award for Leadership from the

Anita Borg Institute AnitaB.org (formerly Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, and Institute for Women in Technology) is a global nonprofit organization based in Belmont, California. Founded by computer scientists Anita Borg and Telle Whitney, the institute' ...

. In 2018 she was featured among "America's Top 50 Women In Tech" by

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

. She also served as the president of the

from 2002 to 2004, and in 2004 won the

A. Nico Habermann award The Computing Research Association (CRA) is a 501(c)3 non-profit association of North American academic departments of computer science, computer engineering, and related fields; laboratories and centers in industry, government, and academia enga ...

Research

Some of Klawe's best-cited research works concern

algorithms In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing c ...

for solving geometric optimization problems,

distributed Distribution may refer to: Mathematics *Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations *Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a varia ...

leader election In distributed computing, leader election is the process of designating a single process as the organizer of some task distributed among several computers (nodes). Before the task has begun, all network nodes are either unaware which node will ser ...

, and the

art gallery problem The art gallery problem or museum problem is a well-studied visibility problem in computational geometry. It originates from the following real-world problem: In the geometric version of the problem, the layout of the art gallery is represente ...

, and studies of the effects of gender on electronic game-playing. She founded the Aphasia Project, a collaboration between UBC and Princeton to study

aphasia Aphasia is an inability to comprehend or formulate language because of damage to specific brain regions. The major causes are stroke and head trauma; prevalence is hard to determine but aphasia due to stroke is estimated to be 0.1–0.4% in th ...

and develop cognitive aids for people suffering from it, after her friend

Anita Borg Anita Borg (January 17, 1949 – April 6, 2003) was an American computer scientist. She founded the Institute for Women and Technology and the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. Education and early life Borg was born Anita Borg Naf ...

developed brain cancer.

Advocacy for technical women

Klawe has been heavily involved with increasing the representation of women in STEM fields. While Klawe was the dean at UBC, she became the NSERC-IBM chair for Women in Science and Engineering. She was in charge of increasing female participation in science and engineering. During her five years as the chair appointment she increased female computer science majors from 16% to 27% and increased the number of female computer science faculty from 2 to 7. In 1991, together with

Nancy Leveson Nancy G. Leveson is an American specialist in system and software safety and a Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, United States. Leveson gained her degrees (in computer science, mathematics and management) from UCLA, including he ...

, she founded

CRA-W The Computing Research Association's Committee on Widening Participation in Computing Research (CRA-WP) has the mission of increasing the success and participation of underrepresented groups in computing research and education at all levels. In par ...

(The

Computing Research Association The Computing Research Association (CRA) is a 501(c)3 non-profit association of North American academic departments of computer science, computer engineering, and related fields; laboratories and centers in industry, government, and academia enga ...

's Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research) and served as its first co-chair. She was also a personal friend of

and served as the chair of the Board of Trustees of the

Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology AnitaB.org (formerly Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, and Institute for Women in Technology) is a global nonprofit organization based in Belmont, California. Founded by computer scientists Anita Borg and Telle Whitney, the institute' ...

from 1996 to 2011. Klawe was a huge advocate for salary negotiation by women, disagreeing with Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella, when he said "It's not really about asking for a raise, but knowing and having faith that the system will give you the right raise. That might be one of the initial 'super powers,' that quite frankly, women (who) don't ask for a raise have. It's good karma. It will come back." 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. She 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." This is what she does at Harvey Mudd. She attributes the lack of women in technical fields due to how the media portrays women. In an interview with PBS she explains how TV shows in the 1970s showed men along with women who had successful careers such as doctors or lawyers and that caused the number of women going into medicine skyrocket. 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. Klawe believes the "testosterone culture" prevents women from continuing on with CS because the males that know everything scare away anyone who is trying to learn. Currently, Klawe is working on helping biology majors learn computer science by working with UCSD to create a biology themed introductory computer science course. Another project she's working on is an online course called MOOC aimed at 10th grade students.

Art

Klawe has also exhibited her watercolors.

References

External links

* Biography o
Maria Klawe
at Human Archives * Summary o
Maria Klawe
at

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

Maria Klawe
Video produced by '' Makers: Women Who Make America''

{{DEFAULTSORT:Klawe, Maria 1951 births Living people Heads of universities and colleges in the United States Businesspeople from Toronto Canadian corporate directors 20th-century Canadian mathematicians American women computer scientists Women corporate directors Researchers in geometric algorithms American women mathematicians Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Fellows of the Association for Women in Mathematics Presidents of the Association for Computing Machinery Directors of Microsoft IBM employees Harvey Mudd College faculty Princeton University faculty Scientists from Toronto University of Alberta alumni University of Toronto faculty University of British Columbia people 20th-century American scientists 21st-century American scientists 21st-century American businesspeople 20th-century Canadian businesswomen 20th-century American engineers 21st-century American engineers 21st-century American mathematicians 20th-century women engineers 21st-century women engineers 20th-century women mathematicians 21st-century women mathematicians Women heads of universities and colleges Naturalized citizens of the United States 21st-century American businesswomen 20th-century Canadian women scientists