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Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan

Dr. Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan, Bauer Professor of Marketing from the Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston has been added to the Fulbright Specialist roster. Her interest in serving as a Fulbright Specialist stems from (1) her commitment to generate and disseminate knowledge to academic and corporate groups, and, (2) her desire to share her research expertise and program development experience to international institutions.

An award winning researcher and teacher, Dr. Patrick has observed that student success and learning outcomes can be significantly improved when the program and the curriculum adopts a “whole self” view of the student/learner. Given that an increasing number of adults return back to school to earn advanced degrees, innovative curriculum design is an imperative, coupled with the need to recognize the individual as a whole and leverage the life experiences that he/she brings to the classroom. As Director of Doctoral programs (2015-17), she used this philosophy to manage the doctoral program at Bauer.  In her current role as lead Faculty of the Women in Leadership program, she has created an agenda that teaches women leaders to integrate their personal and professional selves to sustain excellence in leadership. 

She strongly believes in the importance of a global mindset. She incorporates examples of marketing successes and failures from around the world to expose her large-section undergraduate classes to marketing on a international scale.  She has developed a learning abroad program to Paris for the MBA students at the C.T. Bauer College. She is also frequently invited to conduct seminars to international institutions, which contributes to her global understanding of the academic landscape.

Her research deals primarily with the psychology that underlies the two sides of the pleasure coin. On one hand she studies the pursuit of pleasure in her work dealing with art and aesthetics and luxury branding. On the other hand, she investigates strategies by which individuals can successfully manage the pull of pleasure in her work on self-control and the interplay of affect and control. Her research has appeared in the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Retailing, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes and numerous other academic journals. In 2012, Dr. Vanessa Patrick was named one of the top 50 most productive marketing scholars worldwide by the DocSig of the American Marketing Association.

For additional information about Dr. Patrick, please visit her website here.