Fan Liu, Ph.D.: Forward Facing Research and Student Motivation

When most people think of marketing, they likely aren’t picturing a researcher who has been published in more than one psychology journal and who continues to use her scientific background to inform modern marketing strategies.

While Fan Liu, Ph.D., assistant professor of marketing, is new to Adelphi, she’s a veteran academic who earned a Ph.D. in Marketing from the University of Central Florida in 2015. She’s spent the last five years exploring consumer behavior and psychology, developing a special emphasis on consumer judgment and decision-making. With that in mind, it may not come as a surprise to learn that interpersonal interactions are of particular interest to Dr. Liu. “I benefit from interdisciplinary learning and scholarly collaboration,” she said. “I take great pleasure in collaborating with co-authors who work in different areas.”

In the classroom, she credits her own pursuit of knowledge with helping her students learn. She also engages her students by incorporating different teaching styles class to class—lecture, video workshops, guest speakers and hands-on projects are all tools she regularly implements.

Overall, Dr. Liu believes that to succeed in marketing, it’s vital to keep on learning, something she teaches by example. A primary area of her research resides in the realm of facial characteristics and how to better identify the role facial characteristics used in marketing materials affect consumer behavior.

One of her projects required the use of a software program that blends the features of two faces into a new face. “I tried to learn the technique through reading relevant literature and also seeking advice from other researchers who are significant contributors to the facial perception research stream,” she said.

She believes motivation is key to any successful endeavor, and this is the advice she’d offer to students: “Interact with professors, collaborate with peers and, most important, embrace creativity,” she said.