Harvey Mudd College president to visit

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Maria Klawe

As a woman in the male-dominated field of computer science, Maria Klawe felt like an imposter for much of her career. Today, as president of Harvey Mudd College, Klawe works to bridge the gender gap, finding best practices to attract and retain women in the field of computing.

Klawe will visit Rochester Institute of Technology to present “Gender and Games: Why it Matters” at 1 p.m. Dec. 7 in Golisano Hall auditorium. The talk is sponsored by RIT’s Association of Computing Machinery Student Chapter in the B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences.

The discussion will explore how males and females differ in their preferences and attitudes toward computer games, and why these differences are important when using computer games as a motivational approach to engage students in learning computer science.

A renowned computer scientist, scholar and fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery, Klawe is the first woman to lead Harvey Mudd College since its founding in 1955. Prior to joining Harvey Mudd, Klawe served as dean of engineering and a professor of computer science at Princeton University. She also sits on the boards of Microsoft, Broadcom and the nonprofit organization Math of America.

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.