Luca Cian

Education: M.S., University of Trieste (Italy); Ph.D., University of Verona (Italy); Visiting Ph.D., University of Michigan; Postdoc, University of Michigan

Luca Cian is a professor at the Darden School of Business. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Verona (Italy). The Italian Association of Psychology awarded his doctoral dissertation "Best Dissertation" in his division. The same year, the Council of Italian University Rectors, the Italian National Research Council and the Italian Minister of Youth recognized him as one of the best young researchers in Italy.

His research area is consumer behavior, with a focus on sensory marketing, aesthetics, and human-machine interaction. He is also specialized in biofeedback research, mostly using eye-tracking technology. His most recent research honors include: nominated for the Journal of Consumer Research "Best Paper Award" (2018); top 10% of authors on SSRN by all-time downloads (2018-2021); top 11 most impactful articles in the leading marketing journals selected by the Marketing Science Institute (November 2015 issue); and top 10 most downloaded articles of Journal of Consumer Psychology (September-December 2014). He currently serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Marketing Research.

Before his Ph.D., Luca earned his M.S., summa cum laude with highest distinction, at the University of Trieste (Italy), with a perfect GPA score. There, he was named best faculty graduate. After his Ph.D., Luca spent three years as a post-doc in marketing at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. He then joined Darden in 2015.

With respect to teaching, Luca teaches the "Marketing" core course and the "Consumer Behavior" elective course in the residential MBA program. Luca has also taught "Artificial Intelligence: Psychological and Strategic Insights Intensive" for the Executive MBA at Darden. Luca's teaching has been awarded by Poets & Quants when he was named one of the "40 Most Outstanding Business Professors Under 40, a Global Recognition" in 2019. The Darden Class of 2017 voted him as Faculty Marshal (one of the highest recognitions of the school). Finally, he is often in the top 10% of the teaching evaluations of the school.

Luca's passion for diversity is also recognized by the students, as they nominated him for the Faculty Diversity Award (2019, 2021) and for the Theo Herbert International Award for exceptional contributions to the promotion of Darden as an outstanding international business program (2020).

Luca has published in the top marketing academic journals, including Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Marketing, and Journal of Consumer Research. Popular accounts of his work have appeared on The New York Times, USA Today, VOX, PBS, The Washington Post, NPR, and others.