BIO

Maria Rodas is a marketing professor at the Gies College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she teaches Marketing Management and Multiculturalism in the Marketplace. Her research explores branding, cross-cultural, and multicultural consumer behavior, and her work has been published in leading marketing journals, including the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, and Journal of Consumer Psychology. She has received numerous awards, including the 2023 MSI Young Scholar Award, the 2018 AMA’s Matthew Joseph Emerging Scholar Award, and most recently, the inaugural Gies Advanced Study Scholar appointment for 2024-2025. Prior to joining UIUC, she was a marketing professor at USC’s Marshall School of Business and received her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Additionally, Maria received an MBA from Columbia University and an AB from Harvard University. She spent a decade working in management consulting and in the consumer-packaged goods industry. Her industry experience is predominantly in brand management, having worked with brands such as Yoplait, Old El Paso, Wrigley’s Extra Gum, and Palmolive.