Teaching Terps with Professor Michel Wedel

Distinguished University Professor Michel Wedel's positive and encouraging presence within Smith classrooms has made him a faculty favorite amongst our students. He holds the PepsiCo Chair in Consumer Science at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. Recently we caught up with Professor Wedel to learn more about him!

In 2015 when he was named a Distinguished University Professor, the Maryland Dairy created an ice cream in his honor. Wedel-icious included vanilla, pistachio and mango flavors! When asked about what three words he would utilize to describe himself he said tall, friendly, and diligent!

Professor Wedel’s journey into teaching began at TNO in the Netherlands where he served as the head of a statistics group. While working for the nutrition research company his boss encouraged him to conduct marketing research and obtain a PhD. One of his PhD supervisors, Professor Peter Leeflang, then invited him to become a full professor within the economics department at the University of Groningen. He explains,

I thought the teaching and research aspects of the job would be very appealing. Consequently, I missed out on some of the usual career steps of an academic. I was never in a PhD program and was never an assistant or associate professor.

His background as a bio-mathematician and statistician led to his academic interest in analytics. When he joined the field in the ’90s, analytic foundations derived from statistics, economics, and psychometrics, and were in a phase of rapid development. After making contributions to this growth, he continues to focus on marketing analytics in his teaching and research.

When asked about something he recently learned, Professor Wedel talked about a team of researchers that he is involved in from Santa Clara University and Tulane University that is focused on studying the impact of mobile app crashes on consumer engagement. He notes,

Surprisingly we found positive effects on consumer engagement immediately after a crash, but negative longer-term effects of multiple crashes. The findings have important implications for companies that develop apps through iterative “learning in the marketplace” strategies.

For folks learning about the DC-Metro Area, Professor Wedel encourages members of the Smith community to take a bike ride in the Poolesville or Davidsonville areas. He also encourages a visit to the American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. One of his favorite restaurants in D.C. is Cranes, and he recommends seeing a performance in the Blues Alley Club in D.C. or in the Rams Head Tavern in Annapolis.

For our final question of the day we asked him “Why Smith?”, which is an admissions favorite! Former Smith Dean, Howard Frank, recruited Professor Wedel from the University of Michigan. The opportunity to teach at a top research institution in the country (and world), the ability to serve as a PepsiCo chair and the location within the DC-Metro area is why he chose the Smith School.