The Smith School honored outstanding faculty and staff at its 2026 assembly, recognizing excellence in teaching, research, mentorship and service. Awards celebrated impactful educators, innovative contributors and dedicated staff, highlighting the school’s strong commitment to academic excellence and community collaboration.

Business law professor T. Leigh Anenson examines pension debt in a Cambridge University Press book, analyzing more than 70 cases to explore constitutional disputes over benefit cuts, litigation trends and contract protections, aiming to guide policymakers and courts on reforms.

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.

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.

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.