Ryann Reynolds-McIlnay, PhD candidate in Marketing at the Fox School of Business, recently accepted a position to teach Marketing and Merchandising Management at Oregon State University, beginning in June 2016. The Merchandising Management program at OSU was recently integrated into the College of Business, and part of her service to the University will include providing insight to the redesign of the AACSB accredited curriculum.

During her time at the Fox School, she has focused the majority of her PhD research on consumer behavior, shopper marketing, and sensory marketing. Reynolds-McIlnay’s two-essay dissertation examines the impact of folded apparel display disarray and neatness on shopper’s in-store choice and approach behaviors. In a manuscript based on the first essay of her dissertation, which is in revision for second review at Journal of Marketing Research, she finds that product choice shifts away from the darker or lower brightness apparel products when they appear to have been previously touched, but not for the corresponding lighter or higher brightness products.

She chose to pursue her PhD at the Fox School due to its rigorous curriculum and goal of training quality researchers. She believes that the marketing faculty and Morrin have helped her immensely in terms of publications and preparing her for her future career at Oregon State. “As a mentor and research partner, Mimi trains her students to recognize novel and interesting research questions, how to conduct behavioral experiments, properly analyze the data, and communicate the findings in a way that is accessible to academics and practitioners,” Reynolds-McIlnday said. “She is truly vested in the success of each of her students and her mentorship has been paramount in my success at Fox.”