University of Maryland Names Smith School of Business Prof. Michel Wedel Top Scholar, Teacher

College Park, Md. – September 12, 2013 – Michel Wedel, the Pepsico Professor of Consumer Science at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, was named a 2013-2014 Distinguished Scholar-Teacher by the University of Maryland. Wedel is one of only five faculty members recognized campus-wide in the prestigious program, which honors tenured faculty who have demonstrated outstanding accomplishments as educators and notable achievements in their respective fields. 

Each scholar will present a lecture during the school year, and the award carries an honorarium to support professional activities. Wedel will present “What makes ads effective? The eyes have it!,” on Wednesday, October 23 at 4 p.m. in Van Munching Hall. 

Wedel is one of the top researchers in the field of marketing and one of the top experts using eye-tracking technology. His main research is in consumer science and applying statistical and econometric methods to understand consumer behavior and improve marketing decision making. He teaches models for marketing decision making for MBA students and Bayesian statistics for Ph.D. students. 

Wedel is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science. He has won the Hendrik Muller lifetime award for the social and behavioral sciences awarded by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences for “exceptional achievements in the area of the behavioral and social sciences.” He received the Gilbert A. Churchill award for lifetime achievement in the academic study of marketing research from the American Marketing Association. He has also won the O’Dell best article award from the Journal of Marketing Research. 

He has written close to 170 articles in peer reviewed journals that were around 10,000 times. He is area editor of two top academic journals, the Journal of Marketing Research , and Marketing Science. He has written books on market segmentation, models for marketing decisions, and visual marketing. He has consulted for more than 25 different companies in the nonprofit and profit sectors, including in market research, consulting, direct marketing, food and beverages, financial services, automotive, and telecommunications, and is on the advisory boards of In4mation Insights and glanz.tv, amongst others. He earned his Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands. 

The Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Program, established in 1978, is sponsored by the Office of Academic Affairs and administered by the Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs. The following Smith School professors have received this award in the past: Steve Carroll, Ed Locke, Lee Preston, Samuel Kotz, Kathryn Bartol, Maryam Alavi, Ken Smith, Anil Gupta, Saul Gass, Bruce Golden, M. Susan Taylor, Michael Fu, Curtis Grimm and Ritu Agarwal. 

Other university faculty members to receive this year’s honor are Doron Levy, professor in the Department of Mathematics; Min Wu, professor of Electrical and Computer engineering at the A. James Clark School of Engineering; Gregory Hancock, professor of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology in the College of Education; and Margaret Pearson, professor in the Department of Government and Politics.