mathematics

Maria Klawe

Maria Klawe is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Maria Klawe rather than just read about it. In short: Maria Margaret Klawe ( KLAH-vay; born 1951) is a Canadian-American computer scientist who was the fifth president of Harvey Mudd College from 2006 to 2023. Born in Toronto in 1951, she became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2009.

Key takeaways

Maria Klawe belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Maria Klawe to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Maria Klawe from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Maria Margaret Klawe ( KLAH-vay; born 1951) is a Canadian-American computer scientist who was the fifth president of Harvey Mudd College from 2006 to 2023. Born in Toronto 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. She is known for her advocacy for women in STEM fields.

Biography Klawe was born in Toronto, Ontario. She lived in Scotland from ages 4 to 12, and then returned to Canada, living with her family in Edmonton, Alberta. Klawe studied at the University of Alberta, dropped out to travel the world, and returned to earn her B.Sc. in 1973. She stayed at Alberta for her graduate studies, and in 1977 she earned her Ph.D. there in mathematics. She joined the mathematics faculty at Oakland University 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, 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 were not 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 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. She and her husband Nick Pippenger then moved to the University of British Columbia, 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 of the Microsoft Corporation.

Awards and honors 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. In 1997 she was selected as an NSERC Chair for Women in Science and Engineering (CWSE) at the University of British Columbia, one of only five in Canada. She 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 She was the winner of the 2014 Woman of Vision ABIE Award for Leadership from the Anita Borg Institute. In 2018 she was featured among "America's Top 50 Women In Tech" by Forbes. She also served as the president of the Association for Computing Machinery from 2002 to 2004, and in 2004 won the A. Nico Habermann award.

Research Some of 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. With Peter Shor, Shlomo Moran, Alok Aggarwal, and Robert Wilber, Klawe invented the SMAWK algorithm, a matrix-searching algorithm with applications in computational geometry. She 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.

Advocacy for technical women

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Maria Klawe

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Maria Klawe claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Maria Klawe before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Maria Klawe ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Maria Klawe

In research: Maria Klawe appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Maria Klawe in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Maria Klawe is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1951 births, 20th-century American engineers, 20th-century American mathematicians, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Maria Klawe outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Maria Klawe in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Maria Klawe means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Maria Klawe out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Maria Klawe in simple terms?

Why does Maria Klawe matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Maria Klawe?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Maria Klawe.