Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs

Director, Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs

Dr. Maggie Sikora began her role as director for the Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in February 2023. In this role, Maggie is responsible for leading her team in setting the strategic direction for the office and ensuring related initiatives and policies are developed while remaining focused on the vision, mission, and values of the office and institution. Maggie and the team work closely with university leadership, colleagues, and graduate students and postdocs across CMU. Maggie collaborates with a variety of centralized and interdisciplinary groups such as the Graduate Program Coordinators, the Associate Deans for Graduate Programs, and the Graduate Student Assembly, and serves as chair of the Postdoc Advisory Board as well as a co-chair for the Provost’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Strategic Plan Implementation Committee. In addition, Maggie leads the planning and implementation efforts associated with the office’s signature events, along with several other smaller scale events and programming.  

Maggie has been working in higher education administration for nearly 20 years. Prior to serving in this role, Maggie was the director of The HUB at Carnegie Mellon University for over six years, where she and the team focused on student success and persistence efforts — primarily related to areas of financial aid and student accounts, as well as registration and records. While director of The HUB, Maggie also managed ID Card Services for the entire campus community. Before joining CMU, Maggie spent several years as the director of admission and enrollment services for the School of Education at the University of Pittsburgh — a role that focused on the recruitment and retention of graduate students. Maggie also served in roles at a variety of higher education institutions including Mercyhurst University, Gannon University and California University of Pennsylvania.  

Maggie received her Bachelor of Arts in communications and her Master of Arts in English (focusing on literature and film), both from Gannon University. Maggie completed her Ed.D. in Higher Education Administration at the University of Pittsburgh, where her dissertation focused on the development of equity-minded practitioners in efforts to mitigate enrollment inequities in graduate education. 

msikora1@andrew.cmu.edu
412-268-2664