BIO/VITA

Professional Biography:

Michael D. Smith is the J. Erik Jonsson Professor of Information Technology and Marketing and the Co-Director of IDEA, the Initiative for Digital Entertainment Analytics at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College. He received a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering (summa cum laude) and a Masters of Science in Telecommunications Science from the University of Maryland, and received a Ph.D. in Management Science from the Sloan School of Management at MIT.

Professor Smith’s research uses economic and statistical techniques to analyze firm and consumer behavior in online markets — specifically markets for digital information and digital media products. His research in this area has been published in leading Management Science, Economics, and Marketing journals and in leading professional journals including The Harvard Business Review and The Sloan Management Review. His research has also been covered by press outlets including The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Wired and Business Week.

Professor Smith has received several awards for his teaching and research including the National Science Foundation’s prestigious CAREER Research Award, the 2017 Carol & Bruce Mallen Award for lifetime published scholarly contributions to Motion Picture industry economic studies, the 2009 and 2004 Best Teacher Awards in Carnegie Mellon’s Masters of Information Systems Management program, and the 2018 Dick Wittink Award for the best paper published in the journal Quantitative Marketing and Economics. He was also recently selected as one of the top 100 “emerging engineering leaders in the United States” by the National Academy of Engineering. Professor Smith has served on the editorial boards of a variety of top journals including as a Senior Editor at Information Systems Research and as an Associate Editor at Management Science and Management Information Systems Quarterly.

Prior to receiving his Ph.D., Professor Smith worked extensively in the telecommunications and information systems industries, first with GTE in their laboratories, telecommunications, and satellite business units and subsequently with Booz Allen and Hamilton as a member of their telecommunications client service team. While with GTE, Professor Smith was awarded a patent for research applying fuzzy logic and artificial intelligence techniques to the design and operation of telecommunications networks.

A full curriculum vita is available here.

Selected Grants and Awards:

  • Adjunct Senior Fellow, Technology Policy Institute, 2013-Present.
  • Google Research Award for “Promoting Movies in Digital Channels: Impact of Targeted Movie Promotion on Sales and Piracy in Digital Movie Markets” (with Rahul Telang), February 2014.
  • Initiative for Digital Entertainment Analytics at Carnegie Mellon University (IDEA@cmu), unrestricted gift from the Motion Picture Association of America to analyze the impact of digitization on the motion picture industry, October 2012 – Present
  • Google Research Award for “Broken Windows? The Future of International Distribution Windows in a Global Media Market” (with Rahul Telang), June 2011.
  • Google Research Award for “Estimating The Welfare Gain From Digitization of ‘Out-Of-Print’ Books” (with Rahul Telang), May 2011.
  • International Intellectual Property Institute and United States Patent and Trademark Office for “Statistical Analysis of the Impact of Camcording Piracy” (with Rahul Telang), April 2011.
  • Marketing Science Institute and Wharton Interactive Media Initiative Research Award for “Modeling Multichannel Customer Behavior,” (with Anuj Kumar and Rahul Telang), June 2010.
  • Google WPP Marketing Research Award for “Channels and Conflict: Efficient Marketing Strategies for Digital Distribution Channels,” (with Rahul Telang), February 2010.
  • Yahoo! Faculty Research and Engagement Gift for “Advertising Strategies for Social Networks,” (with Nachi Sahoo), November 2009.
  • Center for the Analysis of Property Rights and Innovation (CAPRI) Research Grant for “The Impact of Digital Music Distribution on Physical Sales and Internet Piracy,” (with Brett Danaher and Rahul Telang), March 2009.
  • Motion Pictures Laboratory Research Grant, “Analysis of Piracy in Online Secondary Markets,” (with Rahul Telang), 2007.
  • NET Institute Summer Research Grant, “Standards Competition in the Presence of Conversion Technology: An Empirical Analysis of the Flash Memory Market,” (with Charles Liu and Chris Kemerer), 2007.
  • Best Published Paper Award Runer-Up, Information Systems Research, 2007, “Internet Exchanges for Used Books: An Empirical Analysis of Product Cannibalization and Welfare Impact,” with Anindya Ghose, and Rahul Telang.
  • Center for the Analysis of Property Rights and Innovation (CAPRI) Research Grant for “Competing with Free: The Impact of Movie Broadcasts on DVD Sales and Internet Piracy,” (with Rahul Telang), October 2006.
  • NSF CAREER Award, “Designing Efficient Information Exchanges: A Program for Research and Teaching, IIS-04485216, 2005-2010.
  • MISM Teaching Excellence Award Nomination, 2005.
  • NET Institute Summer Research Grant, “Incentives and Protocols for Self-Organizing Interest-Based Peer-to-Peer Networks,” (with Rahul Telang), 2004.
  • MISM Teaching Excellence Award Winner, 2004.
  • Best Paper Award Nomination, 2004 International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS).
  • Best Paper Award Runner-Up, 2004 Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS).
  • Amazon.com Research Grant, 2003.
  • Marketing Science Institute Research Award, “The Profitability of Shopbot Design,” #4-1191 (with Alan Montgomery), 2002.
  • Best Paper Award Runner-Up, 2002 International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS).
  • National Society of Collegiate Scholars, Outstanding Faculty Award, 2002.
  • Carnegie Bosch Institute Faculty Development Grant, 2001.
  • Berkman Faculty Development Award, 2000.

Selected Service Activities:

  • Senior Editor, Information Systems Research, 2009-2012.
  • Associate Editor, MIS Quarterly, 2008-2010.
  • Associate Editor, Management Science, 2004-2008.
  • Associate Editor, Information Systems Research, 2003-2006.
  • Associate Editor, Decision Support Systems and Electronic Commerce, 2003-Present.
  • Co-Chair, Workshop on Information Systems and Economics, 2006.
  • Program Committee, Workshop on the Economics of Peer-to-Peer Systems, Berkeley, CA, June 2003.

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