Melissa Baucum earned a B.A. in integrated marketing (Pepperdine University) before starting her career at a research agency in Los Angeles. There, she gained valuable experience conducting research for Fortune 500 clients in tech and consumer packaged goods. Baucum then moved client-side as a marketing strategy researcher for Hulu (Disney Streaming Services), where she discovered a passion for answering firm questions using secondary data. After deciding to pivot to a career in academic research, she joined Haslam’s marketing doctoral program in 2020. Since then, Baucum has garnered recognition for her research in frontline strategy (AMA’s OFR Young Scholar Competition Award 2023; AMA’s Strategy SIG Student Research Award 2023) and teaching (finalist for Haslam Outstanding Doc Student Teacher).

Email: mbaucum2@vols.utk.edu

Quinn M. Gordon is a first-year marketing Ph.D. student. While working on her B.S.B.A. in Marketing, Gordon gained experience in palliative care services as a care assistant and operations coordinator. Upon completing her undergraduate degree, she entered the MBA program at The University of Mississippi and began to explore preventative care; earning certifications through the American Red Cross, the National Academy of Sports Medicine, and on-the-job training. During this time, Gordon began work on her research interests through her graduate assistantship. Following graduation, Gordon relocated to Knoxville, TN, to pursue her research interests in healthcare sales, palliative care services, and wellness marketing strategy.

Connect with Quinn on LinkedIn

Email: qgordon1@vols.utk.edu

Destin Hardesty entered the marketing Ph.D. program in fall 2024. Her research interests focus on consumer behavior and include social media, influencer and sensory marketing. Hardesty received undergraduate degrees in marketing and psychology from the University of Kentucky.

Laurel Johnston entered the marketing Ph.D. program in fall 2023. Her research interests fall in marketing strategy, with current projects focusing on customer data privacy, service recovery and the use of customer data for social good. She is skilled in consumer research and has supported projects in music and gender stereotypes. Johnston is a 2024 AMA MPPC Junior Scholar and 2024 MSI Marketing Strategy Doctoral Scholar. She is a graduate of Western Kentucky University with a B.S. in strategic marketing and a certificate in applied data analytics. Johnston’s professional experience includes public communications for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, digital marketing and consulting with various nonprofit organizations.

Connect with Laurel on LinkedIn.

Email: ljohn190@vols.utk.edu

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Megan Miller entered the Haslam’s PhD in marketing program in fall 2022. Her current research interests focus on consumer behavior and include sensory marketing, digital marketing, and aesthetics. Prior to joining the doctoral program, she was a student and employee at Colorado State University. She completed her MBA with a graduate certificate in marketing management and obtained her bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration in marketing and a minor in mathematics. Miller was also employed by Colorado State University’s Office of Admissions for six years, and most recently served as the assistant director for scholar recruitment, where she gained experience in territory management, employee supervision and event planning.

Email: mmill261@vols.utk.edu

Before joining the doctoral program, Garrett Shipley received undergraduate degrees in neuroscience and psychology from the University of Cincinnati. Since joining the marketing PhD program in 2019, Shipley has found his passion at the intersection of consumer behavior and marketing analytics. His dissertation leverages a combination of web scraping, text analytics and experimental design to explore the factors driving consumer engagement in sports betting communities. Outside of his dissertation, Shipley is working on projects investigating the influence of monochromatic color palettes in television advertisements and the strategic use of experiential versus functional product descriptions. He is also working on building open-source packages in Python and R that make marketing measures and methods more readily available to practitioners and researchers alike.

Email: gshiple2@vols.utk.edu

Kiwoong Yoo is a fourth-year doctoral marketing student. His research interests focus on marketing strategies in the face of disruptions, international marketing and the marketing-finance interface. Yoo has published in the Journal of Retailing and presented at AMA, Global Marketing SIG, Frontiers in Service, SMS and AIB conferences. Prior to joining the PhD program, he worked at Deloitte as an auditor and consultant. Yoo received a B.B.A. in accounting from Hofstra University and a B.S. in interdisciplinary studies concentrating in biological sciences from Cornell University.

Email: kyoo2@vols.utk.edu