Microsoft on Monday announced that it has tapped Harvey Mudd College president Maria Klawe for its board of directors. At the same time, the company said its board authorized a dividend of 13 cents per share for shareholders of record as of May 21, 2009.

A native of Toronto, Klawe is one of the world's top Canadian-born computer scientists. She was the first woman to serve on the board of the Computing Research Association, and she formerly headed the computer science department at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Klawe is also a past president of the Association of Computing Machinery; a trustee of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute at Berkeley, Calif.; and a board member of Math for America.

Her selection restores Microsoft's board to a 10-member body.

"Maria has made significant research contributions to computer science and mathematics, and we are very fortunate to have her join Microsoft's board of directors," Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said in a statement.

"In particular, I think her close connection to university students and the way they shape computing trends will bring an important perspective to the board," Gates said. Harvey Mudd is a private college that's focused on math and science and is based in Claremont, Calif.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer also praised Klawe's selection. "Through her strategic planning work at Harvey Mudd College, Princeton, and elsewhere, Maria has demonstrated the kind of long-term vision and focus that we were looking to add to the board," Ballmer said in a statement.

"In addition, there's no doubt that she brings a solid grasp of the technologies that will be important to Microsoft's future growth opportunities," Ballmer said. In the years ahead, Microsoft is likely to focus its efforts on cloud computing, mobile technologies, and other growth areas as it looks to counter a recent drop off in sales of the Windows operating system.

Klawe joins other notables on Microsoft's board, including Gates, Ballmer, Netflix founder Reed Hastings, former Merck CEO Raymond Gilmartin, and Harvard Business School professor James Robison.

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