Glen L. Urban is a leading educator, a prize-winning researcher specializing in marketing and new product development, an entrepreneur, and author. He has been a member of the MIT Sloan School of Management faculty since 1966, was deputy dean at the school from 1987 to 1992, and dean from 1993 to 1998.

Urban's research focus is on management science models that improve the productivity of new product development and marketing. In a methodology he devised called Information Acceleration, he uses multi-media computer technology to simulate future sales of products such as cars, computer systems, telecommunications, and drugs. He is co-author of five books, including Design and Marketing of New Products (second edition, 1993), Advanced Marketing Strategy (1991), Essentials of New Product Management (1986), and Management Science in Marketing (1969). He has also published over thirty articles on premarket forecasting of new products, test marketing, product line planning, leading-edge users in new product development, and consumer budgeting.