Faculty Impact - Dr. Melissa Bublitz
Posted: February 1st, 2023
Dr. Melissa Bublitz, UW Oshkosh professor of marketing.
UW MBA Consortium teaching courses: Bublitz has taught MBA 755: Consumer Behavior since spring 2015. She also co-developed and began teaching MBA 702: Making Informed Managerial Decisions in fall 2022. She earned the Program's Outstanding Faculty Award in 2015.
Present research: The intersection of marketing and public policy investigating topics such as food decision making and hunger. Bublitz's collaborative research with Laura Peracchio of UW-Milwaukee and nonprofit leaders Jonathan Hansen and Sherrie Tussler of Milwaukee's Hunger Task Force was awarded the Thomas C. Kinnear Award for their article "Hunger and Food Well-Being: Advancing Research and Practice."
Instructor's research is food for thought in MBA program
Dr. Melissa Bublitz's research on food access and food insecurity is rooted in her love of gardening and cooking.
Bublitz, a UW Oshkosh professor of marketing, is interested in how consumers make food decisions and how to use marketing to create a positive societal impact.
"When teaching in the UW MBA Consortium program it is easy to use food decisions as a context for thinking about human decision-making, the biases that influence our decisions, how we process information, draw conclusions and make choices," Bublitz says.
During a 2020 sabbatical, Bublitz was a Researcher in Residence at Milwaukee's Hunger Task Force, where she measured program outcomes tied to a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant to help increase healthy food access in food deserts.
"Not only did I get an inside look at how social impact organizations like the Hunger Task Force develop and deploy community programs to address food insecurity, but I also gained significant knowledge about how federal and state governments partner with social impact organizations to deliver programs like SNAP, WIC, School Meal programs and the CFSP to address hunger at a local level," Bublitz says.
Bublitz's high-impact experience helps provide examples to students of how to apply marketing insights to nonprofit and societal problems. She shares her research with MBA students to "expand their view of marketing as a broad discipline applicable to many different problem settings."
Bublitz teaches UW MBA Consortium courses in Consumer Behavior and Making Informed Managerial Decisions.
"When I was completing my MBA program, the courses I found most helpful were courses where I could leverage projects and other assignments at work," Bublitz says of teaching the courses. "When I teach in the MBA program I try to create these same types of experiences that allow students to both tap into their experience and work responsibilities but also complete assignments that help advance their professional development." |
