Ritu Agarwal to Serve As Interim Dean

After more than 25 years of service to the University of Maryland, Alexander Triantis will step down as dean of the Robert H. Smith School of Business on Aug. 14, 2019. He will be joining the Johns Hopkins Carey School of Business as dean.

Ritu Agarwal, the Robert H. Smith Dean’s Chair of Information Systems and senior associate dean for faculty and research, will serve as interim dean beginning Aug. 15, while the university conducts a nationwide search for a permanent successor.

Since joining Maryland Smith in 1999, Agarwal has taught at every level and received all of the school’s major teaching awards. Her current research is focused on the digital transformation of healthcare, health analytics and artificial intelligence applications in health.

She is the founding director of the Center for Health Information and Decision Systems (CHIDS). The center’s annual conference on health IT and analytics (CHITA) is a leading research forum at the intersection of technology, analytics, and health that attracts international scholars, policymakers and business executives who work in the area of healthcare reform.

Agarwal is a fellow of the Association for Information Systems and a Distinguished Fellow of the Information Systems Society of INFORMS. Her awards include University of Maryland Distinguished Scholar-Teacher and Distinguished University Professor, Maryland’s highest academic honor.

As a member of the school’s senior leadership team, she has worked closely with Triantis, a finance professor who became dean in 2013.

His legacy includes transforming classroom teaching and student engagement by incorporating analytics, critical thinking and innovative experiences like Smith Live Cases into the curriculum, and building the school’s worldwide reputation as a research institution by increasing the visibility and reach of research activities.

The school is consistently recognized by leading rankings publications, with three programs ranked in the top 10 nationally. The school's research reputation is reflected by its No. 17 ranking from the University of Texas at Dallas, based on research publications in premier business journals over the past five years.

Under his leadership the school has invested in several new programs, including new master’s programs, new dual degree programs, and new minors for non-business undergraduates; and launched a number of new initiatives to ensure a highly inclusive and supportive environment for the school’s diverse student body.

This has given Maryland Smith a strong foundation on which to build for the future.

“I would like to express my gratitude to Dean Triantis for his service to the Smith School and the University,” Provost Mary Ann Rankin said.