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Beth Leavenworth DuFault is a consumer behavior scholar with a PhD in Marketing/Management, and a focus on economic sociology and the sociology of culture and consumption. She is an alumna of University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and University of Arizona and comes to University of Portland via State University of New York at Albany and Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada.
Broadly, Dr. DuFault’s work focuses on the interplay between changing consumer identities and changing markets. More specifically, her two overarching academic areas of study are: 1) The marketization of institutions (e.g. health care, science, religion, hospitals, finance/credit, higher education); and 2) Consumer identity changes related to changing institutions (e.g. the rise of black-box algorithm-driven consumer quantification; consumers leaving identity-salient institutions). Her research leads to intriguing questions about how people change as society changes, and how institutions change as consumers do. Under this research umbrella, Dr. DuFault has published about people leaving their religion, consumers learning how to understand black-box algorithmic scoring to improve their bad credit scores, alumni connecting with their universities as brand communities, and owners/employees/volunteers constructing their identities while working together at a social enterprise. With a decades-long career as a health care provider (NICU RRT), she is currently researching the patient and family experience in our increasingly marketized health care industry.
Dr. DuFault is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at University of Portland, and teaches marketing and consumer behavior courses. In her teaching, she brings in real world examples from her health care background, her services marketing/consumer experience consulting background, and even her time as a VIP tour guide at Disneyland so that students can see how marketing principles and knowledge of consumer behavior can be used as powerful tools in business, and also in their own lives as consumers. Dr. DuFault believes in educating the future business leaders of our world in ethical, honorable, socially responsible business practices. Toward this end, she shows students examples of the "bright side" of marketing, and the power of using the marketing toolkit for social good. She regularly presents her work nationally and internationally, consults with businesses on consumer experience, engages in academic/community partnerships, and discusses her work with the media.
University of Portland
5000 N. Willamette Blvd.,
Portland, Oregon 97203-5798
503.943.8000
