Smith School’s P.K. Kannan Earns EMAC Distinguished Marketing Scholar Award

P.K. Kannan, the Dean’s Chair in Marketing Science and associate dean for strategic initiatives at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, received the European Marketing Academy’s 2024 Distinguished Marketing Scholar Award—the highest honor a marketing educator with extensive connections to EMAC can receive.

Kannan’s recognition came during the EMAC Conference in Bucharest, Romania, held between May 28-31, where he also delivered a research presentation. Criteria for the award include demonstrating outstanding marketing scholarship through extensive and impactful research and providing exemplary contributions to EMAC.

Over his career, Kannan’s research has helped establish his reputation as one of the world’s leading voices in online and digital marketing. He has produced extensive work in marketing modeling and applying statistical, econometric, machine learning and AI methods to marketing data. His recent research endeavors focus on mobile marketing, attribution modeling, media mix modeling, new product/service development and customer relationship management (CRM).

His research helped secure several grants from the National Science Foundation, Mellon Foundation, SAIC and PricewaterhouseCoopers and has been published in premier journals, including Marketing Science, Management Science, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing and the International Journal of Research in Marketing.

Through those published works, Kannan earned several prestigious awards, such as the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science Practice Prize Award in 2007 and the John Little Best Paper Award in 2008. He was also selected as a finalist for the Paul Green Award three times (2008, 2014, 2020) and has won the AMA/MSI Paul Root Award twice (2014, 2016). At the Smith School, Kannan is an Allan J. Krowe Award for Teaching Excellence recipient, a four-time Distinguished Teaching Award winner (2000, 2008, 2012 and 2016) and received the Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Award from UMD in 2018.

In 2022, Kannan was identified among the top 2% most-cited scholars and scientists worldwide in a study published by Elsevier and listed in the 2023 “best scientists” ranking by Research.com.

Regarding his service to the marketing field, Kannan is currently an associate editor for the Journal of Marketing Research and the Journal of Marketing, a senior editor at Production and Operations Management, and holds a seat on the editorial board of the Journal of Service Research. He was previously the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Research in Marketing from 2018-2021 and chair of the American Marketing Association SIG on Marketing Research and the INFORMS Service Science section. Between 2017-2022, Kannan was a consistent faculty contributor to the EMAC Doctoral Consortium’s advanced marketing research track.

Kannan joined the Smith School in 2005 as the Center for Excellence in Service director. He previously served as chair of the Department of Marketing and the Ralph J. Tyser Professor of Marketing Science before serving in his current positions.