Terrence M. OBrien

I am an Associate Clinical Professor of Finance at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, where I also serve as the Associate Chair of the Finance Department. I teach a range of quantitative finance topics across the undergraduate, master's, and doctoral programs, with experience spanning the foundational and the advanced. My teaching expertise includes Options and Derivatives, Fixed Income Securities & Bond Markets, Fintech & Cryptocurrency, and other mathematical finance topics. My teaching style blends mathematical rigor, real-world applications, and an absurd sense of humor. I enjoy making complex financial concepts accessible, engaging, and relevant.

In 2025, I received the Allen J. Krowe Award for Teaching Excellence from the Robert H. Smith School of Business.

My academic background also includes research in empirical asset pricing, with a focus on Fintech and Cryptocurrency. This work examined cryptocurrency market manipulation at the exchange level using high-frequency order book and trade data, particularly its relationship to return volatility. My work has previously been featured at the 2022 FMA Doctoral Student Consortium, the 2022 FMA Annual Meeting, the 2023 EFA Annual Meeting, and the Cryptocurrency Research Conference 2023 in Monaco.

I completed my PhD in Finance at Penn State. Prior to that, I earned my Master's in Finance and an MBA from the University of Delaware. Before that, I was an economic analyst, and later the Executive Vice President of Operations, for a private American company which bought and sold Chinese government macroeconomic data.