Maria Klawe began her tenure as Harvey Mudd College’s fifth president in 2006. A renowned computer scientist and mathematician, President Klawe is the first woman to lead the College since its founding in 1955. Prior to joining HMC, she served as dean of engineering and professor of computer science at Princeton University. Klawe joined Princeton from the University of British Columbia where she served as dean of science from 1998 to 2002, vice president of student and academic services from 1995 to 1998 and head of the Department of Computer Science from 1988 to 1995. Prior to UBC, Klawe spent eight years with IBM Research in California, and two years at the University of Toronto. She received her Ph.D. (1977) and B.Sc. (1973) in mathematics from the University of Alberta.

During her time as president at Harvey Mudd, the college has become renowned for its success in attracting women and people of color to all STEM fields. The percentage of female students has increased from 30% to 50%, including in computer science, engineering, and physics majors. The percentage of Caucasian students has decreased from 70% to less than 30% and the percentage of Hispanic and black students has increased from 6% to over 30%. Harvey Mudd College graduates are highly successful in both industry and Ph.D. programs. Harvey Mudd is typically ranked in the top 3 by Payscale for early career and midcareer salaries and comes second after Caltech in the percentage of alumni who complete a Ph.D. in a STEM field.

Klawe has made significant research contributions in several areas of mathematics and computer science, including functional analysis, discrete mathematics, theoretical computer science, human-computer interaction, gender issues in information technology and interactive-multimedia for mathematics education. Her current research focuses on discrete mathematics.
Klawe is a renowned lecturer and has given talks at international conferences, national symposia, and colleges across the U.S. and Canada about diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines and industries, gender and gaming, and lessons from her own career in STEM industry and education.
Klawe is a member of the boards of Glowforge, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the nonprofit Math for America; chair of the board of the nonprofit EdReports.org; and a trustee for the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley. She is a member of the advisory committee for the Schwarzman College of Computing at MIT and a founding advisor of Parity.org. She is a past member of the corporate boards of Microsoft and Broadcom. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Mathematical Society, the Association for Computing Machinery, the Association for Women in Mathematics, and the Canadian Information Processing Society.