Faculty Impact Articles

Rellie Derfler-Rozin received the University of Maryland’s 2025 Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Award and delivered a March 26 lecture on zero-sum mindsets. Her research, teaching and service focus on how workplace behaviors can shift when individuals rethink competitive assumptions and decision-making dynamics.

A University of Maryland white paper analyzing 155 million U.S. job postings finds no evidence AI reduces labor demand. Instead, AI hiring is rising and entry-level opportunities are growing, challenging claims that artificial intelligence is broadly displacing workers.

Clinical professor Justín Reyna uses AI, a custom-built online game and student collaboration to make business law more engaging, helping undergraduates study course material creatively, stay motivated and deepen understanding through interactive tools and competition.

Albert “Pete” Kyle’s landmark 1985 paper on insider trading was honored at a University of Maryland conference, where scholars and industry experts examined its lasting influence on market structure, liquidity and asset pricing more than four decades later.

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.

P.K. Kannan, dean’s chair in marketing science at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, will be inducted into the 2026 American Marketing Association Fellows cohort, honoring his influential research, teaching and service at conference in Madrid.

Smith School faculty continue to make remarkable research contributions. Over three years, they’ve published nearly 500 articles—half in top journals. Twenty-one professors rank among the world’s top 2% most-cited scholars, with research influencing U.S. policy, AI ethics, and global management practices.

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.

Led by President Rebecca Ratner, the Association for Consumer Research held its 2025 conference in Washington, D.C., exploring “Buying and Beyond.” Ratner emphasized social connection in her address, highlighting research on loneliness, consumer behavior, and marketing’s role in fostering connection.