Luca Cian

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

Assistant Professor Luca Cian teaches the first-year marketing core course and the second-year "Consumer Behavior" elective course in the MBA program at the Darden School of Business, University of Virginia. His research area is consumer behavior, with a focus on sensory marketing and social cognition. He has published in the top marketing academic journals, including Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, and Journal of Consumer Research. Popular accounts of his work have appeared on  NPR  and in the Huffington Post, New York Magazine, Fast Company, USA Today, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, and others.

In 2007, Luca earned his MS - summa cum laude with highest distinction - at the University of Trieste, with a perfect GPA score. There, he was named best faculty graduate. In 2011, Luca received his PhD in psychology from the University of Verona. 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. After receiving his doctorate, Luca went for three years at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, as a postdoctoral fellow, working with Professor Aradhna Krishna. During that time, he joined Professor Aradhna Krishna''s Sensory Marketing Lab and Professor Norbert Schwarz''s Social Cognition Lab.

Prior to teaching at Darden, Luca taught undergraduate and graduate courses at the University of Trieste and the University of Michigan. He also worked as a marketing consultant.

Luca''s teaching honors at Darden include: Voted Faculty Marshal by the Darden Class of 2017 and Top 10% Teaching Evaluations of the School (2016).

His most recent research honors include: Top 10% of Authors on SSRN (by total new downloads within the last 12 months); Top 11 Most Impactful Articles in the leading marketing journals, selected by the Marketing Science Institute (November 2015); and Top 10 Most Downloaded Articles of Journal of Consumer Psychology (September-December 2014).

MBA Courses

First Year Marketing
Second Year Consumer Behavior