Biography

Priscilla Peña is a third-year marketing Ph.D. candidate at The University of Rhode Island (URI) and the President for The Ph.D. Project’s Marketing Doctoral Student Association. She also serves as President for the Business, Economics, and Resources Research Society (BEARRS) at the College of Business (CoB). Her research interests are centered on inauthentic brand activism, particularly on the phenomenon of woke-washing, negative emotions, and consumer protection behaviors. Priscilla’s research has been published in the Journal of Business Research and presented at several prominent conferences including AMA, ACR, SCP, and SMA. Her research won the Best Paper in Track at SMA 2020.  In recognition of her exceptional research contributions, Priscilla received URI’s Graduate School Enhancement of Graduate Research Award in 2022 and has been award multiple DEI Mini Grants from URI’s CoB for her work on woke-washing. 

Priscilla is deeply passionate about research and teaching, and her commitment to excellence has been recognized by URI’s CoB. Her research employs a mixed-method approach to tackle complex and high-impact research questions. Teaching-wise, she incorporates practical practices and the use of the flip classroom approach to enrich the educational experience of her students in her Marketing Principles and Social Media courses. 

Priscilla earned her B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Marketing from Georgia State University in 2014, where she received training using electroencephalogram (EEG) to assist in language and executive attention-based laboratories. She went on to earn her M.S. in Marketing with a specialization in Digital and Social Media from the University of Alabama in 2019, where she also served as a research assistant. Presently, she serves as the lab manager for The CoB Laboratory at URI. She is excited to merge her psychology and marketing background to advance and contribute to the field of marketing.

In her free time, Priscilla loves to try new coffee shops, restaurant and walking by the beach. She considers it a perk of living in Newport! Prior to embarking on her Ph.D. program, she was an avid traveler and had visited over 10 countries.