News

University of Maryland’s Financial Wellness Hub opened in McKeldin Library, offering peer mentoring, workshops and classes on budgeting, investing and loans, aiming to improve financial literacy for students, faculty and staff across campus.

Smith faculty led an AI literacy workshop where students used interactive tools and peer presentations to explore practical applications, emphasizing AI as a collaborative assistant while highlighting its limits and role in improving academic, professional and entrepreneurial outcomes.

As the Musk-OpenAI trial unfolds, Smith’s Samuel Handwerger says the case centers on nonprofit law, examining whether OpenAI’s shift to a for-profit model with Microsoft may have violated rules barring private benefit and conflicted with its charitable mission.

A case at a volunteer tax site highlights a gap in U.S. tax reporting that leads students to underreport taxable scholarship income, according to Samuel Handwerger, as forms and software often fail to prompt required calculations and the IRS lacks matching data.

Smith associate professor Sean Cao, co-founder and director of the Smith AI Initiative for Capital Market Research, received two best paper awards for research showing how humans and artificial intelligence work together to improve stock analysis and corporate disclosure in capital markets.

Stephen Loeb, retired University of Maryland Smith School professor and former department chair, was named a leading accounting ethics scholar by the Journal of Accounting Literature, which cites his foundational research and ranks UMD first among institutions in the field.

The Financial Information Systems and Cybersecurity Forum examined emerging cyber fraud threats, research and policy issues, while honoring the 25th anniversary of the Gordon-Loeb Model. Faculty and experts highlighted evolving scams, data-driven insights and the model’s lasting influence on cybersecurity investment decisions.

As International Fraud Awareness Week marks 25 years, the Smith School’s Samuel Handwerger warns that AI is fueling both false cheating accusations and large-scale “ghost student” financial-aid fraud—revealing how technology now endangers academic integrity, accountability, and public trust.

Twenty-one Smith School professors were named among the top 2% most cited researchers globally, according to Elsevier’s 2025 study across 22 fields. Representing both current and emeritus faculty, their impactful research advances business knowledge and global academic excellence.

The University of Maryland’s Justice for Fraud Victims program is partnering with the Frederick County State’s Attorney’s Office Economic Crimes Unit to fight financial crime, following a successful Prince George’s County collaboration, providing forensic accounting and courtroom support for investigations.