Driven To Make a Difference

Ritu Agarwal’s career in academia is more than a job. To her, it’s a calling and a chance to make a positive impact on the world.

Since the earliest days of her career, Agarwal’s mission has been clear: finding the ways that education and technology can be used to solve big societal problems. It’s the reason why, six months into her first job after finishing her MBA with a specialization in information systems and development in India, she knew where she needed to be.

“I felt I wasn’t being challenged every day and I knew I could do more,” says Agarwal, now interim dean and director of the Center for Health Information and Decision Systems (CHIDS) at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. “Long story short, I knew that I wanted to go back to school.”

That realization led her to leave New Delhi for the United States, where she would complete her PhD in management information systems at Syracuse University and subsequently launch her now three-decade-old academic career.

Agarwal recalls that she was “nervous as heck” when she began teaching and says her first experience teaching an MBA class was a “total disaster.” But that didn’t dissuade her, it only fueled her desire to improve and help students reach their potential. That was the mindset she brought to Maryland Smith in 1999.

“I think every class you walk into helps you improve as an educator,” Agarwal says. “I feel like I have a natural affinity for teaching. I just like helping students achieve that eureka moment in the class.”

In addition to being passionate about teaching, what keeps Agarwal excited and motivated every day is scholarly research. It is “immensely gratifying,” and another avenue to make a difference in someone’s life, she says.

Along the way, “I started asking myself ‘What’s next? Why am I doing what I'm doing?’ Education is great because what I do in the classroom is going to make somebody’s life better,” Agarwal says. “But what can I do through research that could be even more useful?”

It was those questions that led Agarwal to pivot her research and academic endeavors toward healthcare. It’s an industry, that at least in business schools, is not addressed as often as it should be, Agarwal says.

“These are the problems that affect each and every person on this planet,” says Agarwal. “So why aren't we paying more attention to it?”

Emboldened by her fervor for healthcare, Agarwal paved the way for the creation of CHIDS at Maryland Smith. Founded in 2005, it is the first research center of its kind within a business school to study the use and application of information technology and advanced analytics in healthcare. Agarwal says the center has been her passion.

“The work we do with CHIDS is so incredibly rewarding,” she says. “From research and outreach to advocacy and student involvement. Why wouldn’t you want to spend your time doing work that makes a difference?”

Through the years at Maryland Smith, Agarwal has taught at every level and received all of the school’s major teaching awards. She was appointed as Distinguished University Professor, which is the highest academic title conferred at the University of Maryland. Recently, she was announced as the recipient of the 2019 LEO Award, awarded by the Association for Information Systems to “truly outstanding” scholars or practitioners who have made “exceptional global contributions” to information systems. It provides affirmation of great professional reputation and integrity and acknowledges individuals who are role models both nationally and internationally.”

“It's humbling to be recognized by your professional association because then you're really talking about a peer group comprised of every faculty member across the world working in the same discipline as you,” Agarwal says.

Agarwal says that teaching and researching are just “part of my DNA at this point.”

“The ability to chart your own course, the variety, the autonomy and the challenge that an academic job gives you is absolutely unsurpassed by anything you might do in the industry,” Agarwal says. “I wouldn't change my job for all the money in the world.”

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