Christine Maziar is vice president for research and dean of the Graduate School,University of Minnesota, a position which she received in competition with more than 120 candidates. As vice president, she presides over the expenditure of more than $204 million in federal and $144 million in privately-funded sponsored research. She also oversees the program for more than 7,000 graduate students in 163 major fields on campus in the Twin Cities and Duluth, and is responsible for technological transfer from the university to Minnesota industries.

After completing her doctorate at Purdue, Maziar joined the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin. In 1991 she was promoted to associate professor and in 1993 spent a year as a visiting research professor at Intel. In 1995 she was promoted to professor and named vice provost for the University of Texas at Austin and in 1998 accepted her present position at the University of Minnesota.

At Texas, Maziar received 12 teaching and faculty excellence awards including the Semiconductor Research Corporation Technical Excellence Award in 1992. In 1990 she was named a NSF Presidential Young Investigator. She has served on numerous review panels for the National Science Foundation, holds three patents, and presently sits on the selection committee for Rhodes Scholars at Minnesota. In addition to working with numerous campus and national committees while at Texas, Maziar received 24 grants, wrote dozens of journal articles, and directed 12 Ph.D. students and 11 master's degree thesis option students. She served as faculty advisor to Eta Kappa Nu from 1988 to 1995 and was a Faculty Fellow for the University of Texas Residence Halls during the same period. Maziar was a faculty advisor to the College of Engineering minority student organization and to the Society of Women Engineers and also participated in the Mentor Program for minority students.