On Dec. 21, 2016, over 800 students graduated from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business with PhD, MS, MBA, and BS degrees. The commencement ceremony was held at the Xfinity Center on the university’s College Park campus. You can watch the entire ceremony online.

Philip Peker ’18, a student at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, writes about the QUEST Honors Capstone Consulting Conference on Dec. 8, 2016.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Online communities are helping patients find and share information and connect with each other at unprecedented levels. But can they also create social value by helping to bridge the disparities between rural and urban health care?

The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) has recognized the research and teaching of S. Raghu Raghavan, professor of management science and operations management at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. Raghavan was awarded the 2016 Prize for the Teaching of the Operations Research/Management Science Practice, plus the 2016 Telecommunications Section Best Paper Award, as part of the INFORMS annual meeting held Nov. 13-16, 2016, in Nashville, Tenn.

Launched this fall, the University of Maryland Research Data Center (UMDRDC) is the newest facility of the national Federal Statistical Research Data Centers (FSRDC) network. A Grand Opening Ceremony will be held on Nov. 18, 2016, at the University of Maryland’s College Park campus.

Professors at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business placed No. 1 in the world for "faculty quality" in The Economist's 2016 full-time MBA rankings, marking the third consecutive year atop the category. Prior to the current run, the school finished No. 2 for faculty quality in 2013. Overall, the Smith School finished No. 47 globally and No. 32 in the United States in the latest rankings, released Oct. 13.

World Scientific, an international publisher which specializes in texts adopted by the likes of Harvard and Stanford universities, has just released “Technology and the Disruption of Higher Education”–based on Professor Henry C. Lucas, Jr.’s recently self-published book.

The University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business is happy to welcome six new full-time faculty members for the 2016-2017 academic year. New faculty joined the Smith School in August in following areas: Decision, Operations and Information Technologies Wei Chen, Visiting Lecturer, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (PhD) Courtney Paulson, Assistant Professor, University of Southern California (PhD)

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Front-line protection of U.S. communities against disease epidemics relies on seamless information sharing between public health officials and doctors, plus the wherewithal to act on that data. But health departments have faltered in this mission by lacking guidance to effectively strategize about appropriate IT investments.

The University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business is excited to announce some favorite books in the "13th Annual Top-10 Summer Reading List for Business Leaders" for 2016, as recommended by members of its faculty and administrators.