Cornelia Pechmann, MS, PhD, MBA

Professor of Marketing at The Paul Merage School of Business, University of California Irvine

Connie (Cornelia) conducts lab and field experiments to study controversial marketing messages including tobacco and drug messages and social media messages. She has received numerous grants to study adolescents’ response to tobacco-related advertising and product placements. Her recent work examines the use of social media for online self-help groups and she has received a $2.5M NIH grant to develop Tweet2Quit for smoking cessation. Prof. Pechmann is currently seeking a grant to study how state and local policies and health events such as COVID affect youth and adult marijuana use by product type, and also the extent of youth exposure to direct marketing websites that sell marijuana. Prof. Pechmann has published numerous articles in leading marketing journals (JCR, JCP, JMR, JM and JPPM) and public health journals (AJPH, TC) and her work has received extensive press coverage. She is past Editor of the Journal of Consumer Psychology (2012-2015), an Area Editor at Journal of Marketing, a Top 50 Marketing Scholar, and a Who’s Who in Economics. She received the 2009 Pollay Prize for Research in the Public Interest, the 2005 JCR best article award, the 2020 Academic Senate Special Award for Impact on Society and the 2020 AMA-EBSCO Annual Responsible Research in Marketing Award. Her research has been presented to the U.S. Congress, the California State Legislature and the National Association of Attorneys’ General. Prof. Pechmann has an M.S., MBA, and PhD from Vanderbilt University.